Project Phoenix Season 1: The MacGuffin Affair
by Jack Borroughs
Summary: In 2008, Nemo wages an unrelenting clandestine war against a powerful and corrupt League, and tries to uncover the nature of a mysterious project dubbed Phoenix.
1. Season Premiere

"MMMMM... Oh god.."

James Bond did not believe her.

"Yesss..."

James Bond looked at the woman beneath him, another one in a very long series of trophies he could no longer earn as he did once before. He looked at her with a flicker of hate, the halo of blonde hair surrounding a face of excellent creamy complexion, ivory teeth were biting a bottom red lip and her eyes would have been bright green if they were not shut at the moment, she was beautiful, and young; just a third of his age.

He listened to her moan in pleasure, and knew she was faking it for the most part, something that annoyed the hell out of him, but he favored it over icy silence. She had been with the firm for six months now, long enough to know the protocol as Josephine called it; all the attractive women that came to work for them had to pass through his bed, they had to feign interest in him, pretend to be attracted to the bald, gray seventy-five year old, and then they had to throw themselves at them, they had to spend a few weeks in his arms before he would lose interest, then they would be transferred to the station of their choice.

"Oh... James!"

Their bodies trembled with release.

* * *

Bond stood in the bathroom washing his face as the young woman slept in his bed, or pretended to. Bond didn't care. 

In a way, he was dispassionate about it as much as they were, he hated the sham of it all, but couldn't stop; he couldn't relinquish the vestiges of what he once was.

Bond dried his face with a towel and looked at the mirror, at the parchment that summed up his lifetime of excessive adrenaline, smoking, drinking and philandering, at the reflection of his bald head, his wrinkled face and the gray beard that framed it.

He was once Commander James Bond, Agent Double-O Seven of SIS; the most feared and competent spy to ever operate during the cold war, who vanquished the enemies of her majesty, survived a hundred deaths and bedded the most exotic of women. He earned the highest titles, wealth and a reputation all men envy.

Those were the days.

Bond wrapped the robe around himself and stepped out of the bathroom. He couldn't just retire and move to Cornwall like everyone else, he couldn't bear it, he would much rather live the false echo of his glorious past than to become one of the mundane masses.

James Bond simply couldn't bare it.

* * *

**The Following Day ...**

Bond made his way through the corridors of the Asgard Building, heading to his office. He impatiently went through with the data verification procedures, wondering if it was necessary for the director of the Agency to undergo them, despite him being the one constantly mandating upgrades to the Agency's Security System. Today was different, for there had been Intelligence from the Agency's station in New York reporting that one of the Agency's long time foes, one that has eluded them for decade, has resurfaced on the United States' East Cost.

Bond waltzed into his oak-paneled, mahogany-furnished office, took off his coat and hung it on a rack before assuming his position on his leather armchair. He pressed a button on a panel fixed into his desk, and an LCD screen blinked on, displaying a man of Bond's age.

"Good morning, Director." said the man with a Texan accent.  
"Good morning, Felix." said Bond, "So, he's finally resurfaced again. How much has it been?"

"Twelve years. As you know, there have been reports of his involvement in several attacks against our own, but none were confirmed. His risking appearance on U.S. soil, as well as him contacting the services of two of the people on our watch list indicates he is planning something major. We've apprehended his known associates, but they all deny recent contact with him."

"Who are these two he's recruited?"

Felix Leiter was replaced by images of a clean shaven man of his fifties with black hair and dark skin, a Caucasian thirty-something brunette woman, and a Caucasian man of thirty with longer than average hair and a light beard. Beneath each were their names and some past employers.

"She's an assassin and demolitionist, mostly working for organized crime but was hired by the government on occasion. He is a subteresterial, formerly associated with the _D.R.I_., currently working as a drug and arms smuggler."

Leiter paused before going on, "We've received information that all three were sighted in a diner in New Jersey, I've already ordered a strike force to approach the facility and take them in."

"How long had he been in the country?" asked Bond after a beat.  
"Thirty-six hours." said Leiter with some discomfort.  
"Do you mind telling how this man, whom we had made a terrorist in the eyes of the entire world managed to slip in undetected, spend a day and a half in the country, recruited two of the people were supposed to be watching at all times, one of which was in a maximum security prison, and may already have vanished again?"

"You know the name yourself, Jim." said Leiter, "He's one resourceful son of a bitch. We'll get him, though, don't worry."

"I won't, I know you'll do all you can. Good day, Felix."  
"Good day, Jim."

* * *

_**Meanwhile,** in New Jersey_

The three sat at a booth in a diner, the younger man and woman at one side while their recruiter sat on the opposite side.

"What's the score, chief?" asked woman then took a sip of stale coffee, "I mean you broke me out of jail and that's nice and all, but you didn't do it out of the goodness of your heart, did you?"

The dark skinned man smiled faintly as he read through the newspaper in his hands, "You can ask your new Partner what I told him."

"Hey!" said the young man as he raised the palms of his hands slightly, "I don't know squat. I told you I was just along for the ride. He didn't tell nothin'."  
"Precisely," said the older man, "All will be explained in good time."

"So why don't I shoot you right here?" asked the woman.

The older man shot her a sharp stare that then softened as he said, "Drink your coffee."

"Errr... Are you sure that's wise?" asked the young man, "I mean we just sprung a convicted murderer out of jail, there ought to be cops lookin' for us, do we need to be here right now instead of getting the hell outta dodge? Besides, you said there were people after you." "Who would those be?" asked the woman.

"As I promised, all will be explained"  
"Wait just a minute," interjected the young man, "You don't want to tell us your master plan before we've proved we mean business and that's ace. But if you got someone bad after you, well, I don't want to be caught in the fire when the shit hits the fan."

The older man seemed to ignore them for a few moments, till be folded the paper neatly and put it down, and said, "Do you know that you two were being watched?"

"What?"

"I know a great deal about you two, I know you've both, despite being mostly freelance, have worked for the US government on occasion, which is how you came into the attention of the people who are after me."

"Again, who would that be?"  
"The most powerful Intelligence Agency in the world." said the older man as he set down the paper.

"The C.I.A"  
"No. Much more powerful, much more covert, and willing to do much more horrible atrocities to do whatever it takes for their designs to come to life. I know that very well, better than most, because I used to be one of them."

* * *

An abrupt ending, I know, it's the best I could come up with. Please Review Review. 

Next Chapter: We take a step back and witness the prison break.


	2. Femme Fatale

**Now**

_New Jersey_

"Time to go." said the older man.  
"Finally," said the younger man, "One more cup of this coffee, and I would've ripped every vein in this joint open to wash it down."

The waitress passing their table shot him a sharp stare.

"Don't look at me like that, lady, your coffee tastes like the devil spat in it"  
"It wasn't the devil." she said.

"What the hell?! You litt-"

"Everybody be quiet!!"

The three turned around to look at the source of the last cry, it was a woman of her late thirties who stood on a table and raised a revolver, "This is a stick up!"

"Any of you try to be a hero and I'll blow your brains out!!"

The last sentence was spoken in a British accent by a man of forty who raised an automatic pistol and aimed at the manager behind the counter.

"You," said the Englishman, "On the floor, hands behind your head. I see you move and you better make your peace with Jesus."

"See, I told you we should have left earlier." said the woman in frustration.  
"Don't be ridiculous, we can use this opportunity to see if your skills have not been softened in prison."

"Alright, listen up." said the female robber, "He's gonna pass you all with a plastic bag, I want you to drop your cell phones, wallets, watches, jewelry. You do it and you're gonna walk out of here alive with a story for the grandkids. You don't, you're gonna get a lungful of what your brains smell like."

* * *

**12 Hours Ago**

_New York City_

The Prisoner followed the guard as she was being led to the visits hall. She was sitting in her jail cell reading when the guard came over and yold her she had a visitor, much to her surprise as she was never visited by anyone at all. After all, her Sister Lisa was long gone and she was all the family she had left.

Her heart fluttered as she considered the possibility that it was Max coming to finaly see her, she fought to convince herself it was rediculous, but deep inside, she hoped for it dearly.

She sat on the seat and picked up the receiver as she looked through the bulletproof glass at her visitor.

It wasn't Max at all to her dissapointment, he was foreign to her, and looked it; he was clean shaven, had dark skin and short black hair and was holding his own receiver to the side of his face, waiting for her to listen.

"Hello." said the prisoner, without an ounce of interest.  
"Hello, I was hoping we could talk."

The prisoner noticed that her visitor spoke with a received pronunciation English accent.

"You're in luck, my secretary cleared my appointments for the afternoon."  
"I hear you have fifteen years left to serve your sentence"  
"Really? Wow." said the prisoner with a role of her brown eyes.

The stranger looked at the prisoner as the conversation paused, she had a slim figure, black hair tied in a ponytail and red pouty lips, she reminded him of the wife he once had. Her brushed off the memory and went on.

"I also hear you were in a fight yesterday, put two other inmates in the infirmary."  
"They started it. What do you want?"  
"I was wondering how eager are you to finish serving your time."

The prisoner straightened up and became slightly interested.

"What; are you my new lawyer?"  
"No. Answer my question."  
"Are you serious? Do you think I want to spend twenty years avoiding being raped in the showers? Or getting shanked in the ribs with nothing to look forward to than the beat up book with the missing pages I get from the library once a month? No, I'm not interested in doing my time at all."

"What would you be willing to do to leave"  
"Why? Can you do that"  
"Maybe, depends on how bad you want it. So, what would you do"  
"Anything." said the prisoner, and then looked around herself suspiciously, "Who are you?"  
"Mister Priest," said the stranger, "You're on."

"What?" asked the prisoner, baffled by the statement, which seemed to be not directed at her at all.

All of a sudden, the stranger dropped the receiver and it hit the wall as it swung, he twisted a ring on his middle finger and pressed the palm of his hand on the sheet of glass separated them, just as the lights started to flicker.

The prisoner could hear a slight zinging sound just before the glass shattered, two seconds before all the lights were dead.

"Jump over here, Miss Sax."

The prisoner named Sax felt the guard approaching her from behind, she could hear him reaching for his gun, she swiftly got up and kicked the chair back.

The iron seat collided with the guard who sounded a groan, Sax spun around, aiming a precise martial arts kick towards where the groan came from.

Upon hearing the thud resulting from the unconscious guard slumping onto the floor, she felt her way through the dark till she felt the shattered pain of glass, which she pushed aside with her still cuffed hands and jumped over.

She felt five firm finger clutching her forearm and leading her away, as she heard the stranger's voice saying, "Come this way."

"Is this your plan?"  
"Yes."  
"We'll never make it, they've probably already started locking the place down."  
"How long do you think I've spent planning this prison break?"

The two of them made their way through the dark briefly before the emergency power kicked up and the place was flooded with dim red lights.

"Put them on." said the stranger as he handed Sax two small thimble-shaped pieces of rubber, "Ear plugs.", he explained.

She could hear guards approaching, and was quickly loosing hope of this plan working, but clung on to the last bit of hope as she obliged and put the ear plugs in, as did he briefly.

The stranger took off his watch and pressed the winding screw thrice, then tossed it at the ground as two guards brandishing their shotguns came bursting through a door.

"Fuck." muttered Sax, as she raised her hands in surrender and stepped away from the stranger.

The screeching started, and intensified rapidly, like endless sirens causing great amount of pain for everyone with unprotected ears in the vicinity, the guards collapsed onto the floor, grabbing their the side of heads, gritting their teeth and shutting their eyes tight, suffering from the immense sonic pressure.

* * *

"Alright, who the hell are you?" said Sax as she slammed the back of a guard's neck with the butt of the shotgun she had picked up on their way out.

She and the stranger were currently making their way through the prison yard, and she noticed that they power was cut off the entire area surrounding the prison. The stranger failed to answer her question, he was fighting guards left and right using some kind of martial arts technique.

The prison's main gate opened up and a heavily armored truck came speeding in, slamming into the high barbed wired fence and smashing it open.

"I said-"  
"Not the best of times, Miss Sax."

Someone stepped out of the back of the truck, carrying an unusual rifle, "Heads up." he hollered as he took his aim.

"The time is now," said the stranger, "Run!"

The two made a dash for it as the man by the truck fired, sending a projectile that flew over their heads and exploded twenty yards behind them.

"Tear gas." explained the stranger as the distance between them and the truck shrunk.  
"Did anyone ever tell you have a knack for answering questions no one asked and ignoring the ones that were?"

"Get moving!" said the man in the truck, "My bowels move faster than you two."

Sax and the stranger jumped into the back of the truck, the latter made his way to the front seat while the first lay on her back on the iron floor, gasping, trying to fathom what had taken place in the past ten minutes, she looked at the man who was currently closing the door, and stared through the shrinking opening at what had been her 'home' for three years. She was so glad that she was leaving.

There was a sudden single discharge of a bullet somewhere in the distance, the man staggered back and collapsed next to her as the door swung shut, the white t-shirt he wore under his brown leather jacket stained with blood.

"Fuck's balls." cursed the man.  
"Jesus! He's been shot." said Sax as she sat up and tried to help him.

The stranger floored the gas and the truck jerked forward, driving away from the prison like a bat out of hell. He looked back at the prisoner and his partner with slight interest.

"Priest, are you Alright?"  
"Aww, crap! Yeah... I'll be fine. It's not silver, but it hurts like the dickens."

Much to Sax's amazement, Priest sat up and made his way to the passenger seat, clutching his bleeding stomach and treating his traditionally fatal injury with as much worry as one would normally do with a nasty itch.

"We'll dispose of the truck four blocks away. I've got a car ready." said the stranger as he swerved sharply to the right.  
"Gray ain't your color, doll." said Priest as he tossed Sax a plastic bag, "Don't worry, we won't look."

She looked into it, it contained a pair of dark brown jeans, a black top and a dark read leather jacket as well as a pair of shoes.

"Who the hell are you two? Where are we going?" asked Sax as she started removing her gray overalls.  
"Don't ask me, babe, I'm just along for the ride." said Priest with a chuckle.


	3. The Man in Eternity

Hello dear readers, I would like to thank all who have bothered to review and express my hope that I will be able to entertain you. Anyway, I'm starting a little competeion, whoch you can read about below.

On with the story...

* * *

**Now**

_New Jersey_

The Englishman approached the three, holding his gun in one hand and a black plastic bag in another. The two men silently dropped their watches and wallets into the bag, while Mona Sax just starred the robber blankly.

"What are you staring at, bitch?"

Mona kept silent as she kept her hands under the table.

"What do you have under the table? Give it to me."

Mona kept silent. The Englishman lost patience and dropped the bag on the table and reached under it, letting down his guard for a second, but it was long enough for Mona to raise her hidden hand above the table and stick the barrel of a Desert Eagle handgun under his chin.

"Drop the gun."

The man's pistol was pointed away at the moment, he knew he was not fast enough for him to point it at her head and pull the trigger before she pulled her own and blown the top of his head off.

"Pumpkin? What's wrong?" said the female robber.

'Pumpkin' dropped his pistol, and then Mona stood up, keeping the Englishman's body between her and the woman.

"Let him go you skank or by fuck I'm gonna put one between your eyes!!"

"Yolanda, don't do anything." said 'Pumpkin', panicking.

"Go ahead," said Mona with a grin as she pushed her gun upward, digging into the bottom of 'Pumpkin's jaw, "Let's see if you can shoot me without hitting your man."

Yolanda knew she was right, but wouldn't relent, so she pointed her gun at Mona's associates who were retrieving their possessions back from the black bag, and she said, "Maybe not, but I'm gonna shoot them if you do."

"Miss Sax, don't you let him go." said the older man.

"Shut up, Pablo!" cried Yolanda, "I'm gonna shoot!!"

"Jeez!" said the younger man, "What a drama queen!"

"No! You drop yours!"

"You've been sleeping with him for…" started Mona, then paused and addressed 'Pumpkin', "How long has it been?"

"Fif- Fifteen years." said 'Pumpkin' with a loud swallow.

"You've been screwin' him for fifteen years, I haven't known these guys for more than a day. I'll grieve for them as much as I'm going grieve for Pumpkin. Now I'm going count to five, and if you don't drop that gun of yours. I'm shooting his fucking head off. Five..."

The Older man smiled at his young associate and said, "She's good, isn't she?"

"Four..."

* * *

**24 Hours Ago**

_Eternity, Minnesota_

A man walked into a bar, bowing his head slightly and burying his hands in the pockets of his denim jacket, as if trying to avoid attention, not that there was many to notice him anyway.

It was a small, dark and not very appealing bar, and it was the middle of the afternoon, three men in suits sat at a booth, obviously accountants on their lunch hour, two women together and three separate men sat at the bar. The Bartender stood behind the bar and eyed the newcomer with some curiosity, he tore himself from the shallow conversation he was having with the pair of flashy middle aged women that came here daily at these hours and called for the stranger, "Hey, can I help you?"

"Whiskey." the stranger simply said as he briefly looked up at him. The Bartender got a good view of his face; he had short black hair and dark skin. Arabian or Mexican thought the bartender, who went to pour the stranger's whiskey and briefly glanced at the shotgun he kept under the counter.

The stranger went and sat directly next to a man of his early thirties, he was of medium height with black scruffy hair, hunched around a thick roll of ten dollar bills he was counting. He sensed that the stranger was looking at him and he looked up to see he was right; the bright eyes were indeed upon him.

"Hey buddy, d'ya mind?" growled the man.

The stranger looked away without saying anything, he took a sip of the arriving whiskey, then said, "I heard you were a man with... tallents."

"Oh yeah, where'dya hear that?"

"Never mind that, let's say I could pay-"

"Are you a cop?"

The stranger turned his head to look at the man as the latter stuffed the role of tens into his back pocket.

"No."

"That's what a cop would say. Listen pal, I don't do jobs for people I've just met in a bar. What do you think, I'm an amateur? You've probably didn't hear-"

"I've heard enough about you to know that you would never get out of this bar, ever, not till Six-Thirty and not unless it's raining outside."

The man was surprised, but only slightly.

"So you know I'm a vampire, whoop-de-do. Am I supposed to be impressed?"

"I have a job for you."

"I ain't interested, man." said the man, "You wanna leave now."

"Anything else?" asked the Bartender as he looked at their direction.

"Another round," said the stranger, "For the both of us."

"A drink ain't about to change my mind." said the man as he stood up and headed to leave.

"Call Lance." said the stranger.

"What?" asked the man in utter confusion as he stopped in his tracks.

"Call Lance."

The man didn't know how to respond, he was really surprised that the stranger knew about Lance, the only thing he could do was head to the phone booth at the back and dial the number.

A few rings later, Lance picked up and delivered some very interesting news. Dumbfounded, the young man headed back to the stranger.

"I heard something funny on the phone while I was at the back," said the man with a chuckle, "Apparently, some Indian guy beat up Hannibal King and put him in a hospital."

"Yes, was that the Hannibal King you know or did I attack an innocent man?"

"Nah, it was him." said the man with a grin as he sat with glee at the bar again, taking a sip of the whiskey the stranger had bought him, "Hannibal and I, we have a common history. You might say we have a rivalry going on."

"You slept with his Woman." said the stranger as he finished his whiskey.

"Well, yeah. But enough of that, I think I could use the money. You said something about a job?"

"I did say that."

The man leaned in to speak quietly, "Got any gear you want me to move anywhere?"

"No, I'm not hiring you in that capacity."

"Well then, what are you hiring me as?"

"Muscle."

"Muscle? You don't look like you need it, King is a big hard ass and you all but finished him."

"The Operation I have in mind requires that a significantly greater amount of brute force be exercised. I'll pay you thirty-fine thousand."

"Dollars?"

"Of course."

"To be your bodyguard?"

"Not precisely, but yes."

"What kinda Operation d'ya have in mind?"

"I don't disclose the details of my operations for people I had just met in bars. Suffice to say It will be bloody, time consuming and lucrative."

The man paused for a moment, then said, "I don't appreciate the secrecy, but I'm in."

"Good, we'll leave tonight. The operation will take us great distances."

"No problem." said the man then he called for the Bartender, "Spanky, a beer and a whisky."

"Comin' up."

The man turned to the stranger again and said as he extended his hand, "Judas Priest."

The stranger shook Priest's hand silently, then let go of it, leaving Priest waiting.

"Decorum dictates you introduce yourself right about now."

"Me?" said the stranger, "I'm no one, really. You can call me... Nemo."

* * *

Hoped you liked it, yes, Nemo is still alive and kicking in the 21st century, how and why? You'll find out soon enough. 

As for the competition:** I will feature a character in a small yet noticeable role, based upon yourself if you rprovide me with a character that I find suitable to the criteria below.**

Characters Needed:

-Male or Female, early thirties, somewhat arrogant, combat skills. Anglophone preferable.

-Russian, 50s to 70s, rutheless.


	4. Shipping down to Gotham

"Three..." said Mona confidently as she was at mid-count. 

"Drop it! BITCH!!" cried Yolanda as her finger vibrated on the trigger.

"Two..."

Yolanda caved at once and dropped the gun, then nervously raised her hands.

Priest turned to Nemo and said, "Yes, she is."

"Get off the table, Kick it over to him." said Mona.

Yolanda climbed off the table, and with unsure feet kicked the gun over to Nemo who picked it up, while Mona picked up the Englishman's gun.

"Excellent work, miss Sax." said Nemo as he stood up and stepped out of the booth, as did Priest, who then put on a a light brown cowboy hat and dark shades.

"Thanks, boss." said Mona quietly then raised her voice as she addressed the robbers, "On the floor, hands behind your heads. That goes for everyone, no one gets up."

"Are we still bailing or what?" asked Priest.  
"No reason to think otherwise." answered Nemo.  
"What about them?" asked Mona, referring to the pair of robbers.

"Shit..." cursed Priest.  
"What is it?" asked Nemo.

"It could be the spit-coffee talking, but I think we're in trouble."

Nemo looked out the wall-to-wall windows to see a few black SUVs suspiciously pulling up and parking across the street.

"They've gotten good." mused Nemo with half a smile, "All right, we'll leave through the back. Be careful, they will have men posted there too."  
"Those wouldn't be you old buddies now, would they?" asked Priest.  
"Yes, they are."

**

* * *

**

Priest stepped out of the back door first, avoiding the sun gracing his skin. Ignorant to the man standing in on one end of the ally, aiming a high powered shotgun at him.

The shotgun blast struck him in the stomach hard, causing a sensation of nausea and dizziness, he staggered back, feeling understandably annoyed. Mona continued to prove her worth as she swung out into the ally and stood directly behind Priest, and aimed her two guns, her own and one she took from the Englishman and aimed them at the man with the shotgun and pulled the trigger.

"I'm not your goddamned shield." said Priest through gritted teeth, "I really don't think that's the only one."

Nemo stepped out and hurled a grenade at the end of the ally, it exploded with a thick cloud of gray smoke.

"Get in the car." said Nemo as he slipped into the driver's seat of a car that wasn't the one they came in.

Mona got into the passenger's seat while Priest lay down on the back seat, securely covering his body with a blanket.

* * *

The men in the black armored cars soon realized what was going on and gave chase to the three across the city.

"Where are we going?" asked Mona.  
"The Harbor." said Nemo.  
"Please don't tell me were going to ditch cars again." said Priest from under the blanket.

The side-view mirror shattered as it was fired upon by a man in one of pursuing vehicles. Mona reloaded her gun then prepared to stick her torso out through the window to fire back when Nemo turned the wheel violently and the car screeched as it turned right.

"Dammit!" cursed Mona as she was pulled back into the car by the momentum.

They were at the harbor at last, but the pursuers were still behind them, the car dodged endless dock hands, trucks and crates of cargo as the Nemo steered with surgical precision.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Nemo ignored Mona as he drove in a straight line, heading directly towards an empty peer.

"What? What's he doing now?" asked Priest.  
"He's gonna drive us right off the pear." answered Mona as she instinctively clutched the sides of her seat.  
"What? Why the hell is he doing that? I don't like drowning!"

"Hang on to something." said Nemo as he floored the gas and the car was sped up towards the big blue ocean.

"Jesus Christ!"

The car plunged into the water and quickly started to sink.

"You can get up from under there, Priest." said Nemo as he let go of the steering wheel and turned off the engine, and smiled contently as he lay back in his seat.

"You rat bastard!" said Mona angrily as she pressed her gun against Nemo's temple, "You crazy son of a bitch!"

Just before Mona could pull the trigger, her attention was pulled to a strange source of light coming from under them.

Priest and Mona looked out of the windows to see an uncanny sight, something large and yellow, with a rectangular gaping hole in the middle of it, surrounded by spotlights. The car descended deeper and deeper, heading directly through the hole.

The car collided with some kind of surface, sounding a muffled clang, then the hatch above them slid shut, and all was left was darkness.

The darkness was soon dissolved as powerful lights started up and Priest and Mona could see they were is some kind of vaulted chamber filled with water. A moment after the lights were turned on, jets started working, draining the chamber of the water within it, it took no more than two minutes before the three were able to exit the car, and step onto the wet metallic floor of this strange vehicle.

"A Submarine?" asked Priest, stating the obvious, "You.. We're in a Submarine?"  
"Miss Sax," said Nemo, "That will be the last time you ever point a gun at me"  
"Where are we?" she asked.

Nemo headed to the vaulted gate, and said, "More important than where is what. We are safe."

The vault's locks were disabled and the heavy gate swung open, revealing a pair of well built, un-uniformed men behind them.

"Welcome Back, Captain." said a seaman, to whom Nemo nodded in acknowledgment.

"Come," said Nemo as he stepped through the gate and into the lit corridor outside, "It's time you learned what you have gotten yourselves into"

* * *

Priest and Mona followed Nemo into what appeared to be the blablabla of the vessel, where a man of sixty was waiting.

"This is my first mate, well, he's actually the real captain."  
"David Pepper," said the captain in a scouse accent, "Former Sergeant with the Royal British Navy."

The captain then turned to Nemo and said, "It is still your ship, Captain. I'm just earning my keep."  
"You do more than you must, David." said Nemo fondly, "How long till we reach our destination?"  
"Two hours."  
"Make it three, it will give me a chance to explain our operation to our new recruits."

"Very well." said Pepper as he took his leave.

Nemo turned to Mona and Priest and asked,

"Tea?"

* * *

"Our story begins as the nineteenth century draws its final breaths," said Nemo as he sipped his tea, still in the main cabin with his two recruits sitting on a bench, and continued, "When James Moriarty; mathematician, criminal mastermind and British Intelligencer used M.I.5's resources to assemble a team of six civilians to try and stop a world war, one that he himself was engineering, for the purpose of accelerating an arms race in which he would be a major supplier.

"His plan was foiled by that very team, and the world didn't go to war. This team then continued to work for British Intelligence, but quickly came to an end within a year, during what was known then as the War of the Worlds, which saw the death of three members and the departure of a fourth due to moral reasons. I'm sure Mister Priest remembers both events.

"Yeah," said Priest uneasily, "Krauts attacked a British Bank. Then the Brits kidnapped a bunch of German arms scientists."

"As the years went by, the team changed members and continued to serve covertly. It became clear to the war office that the team, known as the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, was the most capable intelligence asset they had. And so, in 1944, Winston Churchill separated the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen from MI-6, and the League became a separate Agency.

"Decades later, the League has broken away from the United Kingdom itself, and became a massive intelligence powerhouse, notably flourishing during the cold war. The League was a blessing. It stopped countless disasters, averted five world wars beside the two that did happen, it made a positive difference. But as these things usually happen, it all went badly. The more power the League gained, the more it's methods got vicious, until eventually… Well, suffice to say you can hardly tell the League and the ones it stands against apart.

"I can tell you truthfully that the League has supplied the false intel that led to the invasion of Iraq and we have reports that suggest they may have aided Al-Qaeda in 9\11. They have surpressed a possible cure for cancer, assassinated politicians aiming for reforms they did not desire, they have nurtured the turmoil in the middle east since the sixties. The list goes on...

"Eventually, realizing the League must be stopped, some of us former League Agents decided to put an end to their influence. We've organized cells around the world to carry out carefully planned attacks against the League. We annually cause them millions of dollars worth of loses, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. We have barely managed to be an annoyance. If we are to ever defeat them, we must one day wage a full blown war against them. But until then, we must stick in the shadows and resort to guerilla warfare.

"The League is comprised of seven members and commanded by an eighth, James Bond; a former British Secret Service Agent and League Operative during the seventies. Each of the seven members presides over a main Branch. There are dozens of other smaller Stations around the world. We generally have a cell in every City where there is a main Branch. Each cell is comprised of three members.

"You two will form one of these cells. I will be your handler, you may meet a few other members of the opposition, but not many. All members of the opposition will never have full knowledge of each other, you will never know who they are and how many do they total. You will receive a monthly salary and you will follow my orders, understood?"

"Wait a minute, there are two of us. Who is the third?" asked Mona.  
"You two will have to do for the time being, till we find someone else willing to work for us."  
"Fine, here is another question;" said Priest, "How did you find us?"  
"The Red List."  
"Come again?"  
"It's a list of five hundred persons from around the world that the League feels would be good choices for future candidates to be on the League's payroll. You worked for the U.S. Government during the fifties. Miss Sax carried out Sanctions ordered by CIA officials back in the year '99. Which have qualified you for slots numbers 127 and 149 on the list."  
"O… Kay." said Priest, "And how did you get it? Did you just download it off of the League's web page??"  
"I stole it, I thought that was clear"  
"Hey, I'm just asking."  
"Well, if you're done asking, what is your response?"

"Well," said Priest with a grin as he tipped his cowboy hat, "It sounds like a circus. I'm in."

"Miss Sax?"

Mona seemed uncomfortable with the proposition, I took her some time to talk.

"I told you right before your broke me out that I would do anything to get out. I suppose I should honor that agreement"  
"It's great to hear that." said Nemo with a faint smile.  
"Just wait," said Mona, "I'm not doing this full time. I'll do what you tell me to do for a while, I'll be a pro. But once it gets too crazy, I'll walk. I'm not going to die for something crazy like this. I was shot in the head once, I don't want to go through it again."

"As you wish." said Nemo as he turned to leave.

"Wait," called Mona, "We're not going back to New York, right? It'd be crazy to be based there."  
"Of course." said Nemo.  
"Well, where the hell are we going?"

"Gotham City."

* * *

Before you ask, Batman isn't going to be a member of Nemo's army, though Bruce Wayne is bound to appear at one point.

Master of the Boot, I have already decided which character to use by the time your review came in, but I might use Revolver Ocelot as well, so your character willb e in it as well.

Lava, don't beat up yourself, I'm using St. Jimmy, who will be known as James Saint (St. Jimmy would be his street name).

Also, O'm open to suggestions regarding who should be in the league and Nemo's army. Whoever provides someone I like might have a cameo as well.


	5. Greased Eel

**Three Days Ago**

_Gotham City, Maryland_

A tall, slender woman with her auburn hair tied in a bun, wearing a black silk business suit and high heeled shoes walked into the office where Bond was sitting, hanging his head in his hands.

"James," she said with a smug smile, "How nice of you to stay here longer than we anticipated. Have you made yourself comfortable in my office?"

Bond looked at her, feeling a measure of contempt and resentment, he nodded while simply saying, "Josephine, good evening."

"I heard," said Josephine before she took a pause as she sat down on a leather couch, "That Nemo has resurfaced up the coast. And that he has escaped along with two individuals on our Red List."

Bond realized this was going to be an encounter full of snide remarks on both parts, which he did not feel up to, so he stood up and put on his coat.

"Leaving already?" she asked with mock concern.

"Yes, with the New York Branch's failure to capture him, there seems little cause for me to stay. Where's your secretary?"

"Secretary?" asked Josephine, "Miss Darkholm is much more than that, James. Much much more."

Feeling the growing probability of an embarrassing shouting match coming on, Bond walked out the door, and headed directly to the elevator.

Within minutes, he was in a Helicopter ascending from the Asgard Building's Heli-pad, returning him to the League's main headquarters.

* * *

**January, 1901**

_London, England_

Captain Nemo stood upon the Nautilus's conning-tower, the cold wind toying with his massive beard. He looked upon the river themes, covered by the red weed the invading martians had brought with them. The Submarine had been stuck in it's position for three days now, since Mrs. Jekyll and Agent Sawyer had departed on the a special Assignment per the order of Mycroft Holmes, acting chief of Military Intelligence and the League's superior.

The Captain's doom darkened at the thought of those two, those treacherous two.

It was like it was only last week when Moriarty had recruited them all to do his bidding, and it seemed that only last week did Campion Bond approached them with an invitation to work for the British Empire full time.

It appeared to be a new beginning for the group, Skinner, himself and Jekyll were pardoned, Mina and Jekyll seemed to come to terms with their bestial natures. They even started a romance that culminated in marriage, on the surface it seemed as if though they had finally found their footing in this world that which they did not fit in, it was as if though they had become a family.

That wasn't the case.

Roughly six month ago, the Captain had heard of a rumors circulating among the more gossipy crewmen about a torrid love affair between Mrs. Jekyll and Agent Sawyer, at first he was sure that wasn't the case and demoted those advertising the rumor to the lowest rank. But that didn't help matters, and soon enough, he found out about the truth. He had stumbled upon the pair, succumbing to lust on the Submarine's deck while they were afloat in the middle of the night, thinking no one had been the wiser.

At the time he seriously considered telling Jekyll, who had grown to be his closest of friends, but eventually decided against it, lacking the heart to ruin the little happiness the man had longed for all his life. Hoping that Mina would come to her senses at some point and put an end to it.

Jekyll found out, though. Nemo didn't know how, perhaps Jekyll found out just like Nemo did. Jekyll had known what was going on, and it took a terrible toll on him, his moods grew darker and he became antisocial, eventually moving into different sleeping quarters. He seemed to take caution in his wandering around the Nautilus, as if though he never wanted to see them red handed.

Jekyll was obviously in denial, Nemo thought, and his thoughts were proved true when the Doctor attacked a crewman who had overheard talking about what he imagined Mrs. Jekyll and Agent Sawyer and what he believed they were really doing on their way to the countryside where Holmes had dispatched them.

Nemo couldn't believe the sight of the usually gentle, polite and reserved physician as he clutched the man's neck in his hands, squeezing hard, his eyes wide open in an animalistic fury, his teeth gritted in pure wrath. It took six crewmen to rescue their suffocating colleague from the Doctor's death grip.

Eventually, the Doctor came to his senses and apologized profusely to the crewman before retiring to his quarters, claiming to be very tired. That was two days ago, and the Dcootr was no where to be seen.

Strangely, Mrs. Jekyll and Agent Sawyer remained in the dark, they thought their secret was secure and attributed Jekyll's change in character to Hyde's ever growing influence.

Taking pity over Jekyll, Skinner had decided to accompany Sawyer and Mina, despite the objections of Bond. Skinner somehow managed to use his underestimated intelligence and finesse to convince Holmes that his place was with Mina and Sawyer, and that he could offer little help in London.

Nemo smiled at the thought of it, the Invisible Man was in his own peculiar way, a much more loyal friend of Jekyll's than Nemo could over hope to be.

Nemo decided to push the whole terrible affair out of his mind and focus on the important matter.

Approximately three weeks ago, a number of Cylinders landed in Woking and surrounding villages. When the League was dispatched to investigate, it became clear that they were vessels carrying intelligent jelly like creatures, it was believe they had come from Mars. It was clear that their intent was malevolent as they attacked civilians and army personnel alike using a sophisticated weapon capable of delivering heat from a distance.

The martians had since creates contraptions to help them move as they were incapable of that on their own. Those vessels resembled a giant three-legged milking stool, with a stingray shaped head, armed with a heat-ray canon.

The army proved to be no match to them, though on occasion they had managed to destroy some of these tri-pods as they were known. Nemo's crew had destroyed several themselves. Yet they were defeated by their superior intelligence as they released this red weed as an anti-submarine weapon to demobilize the Nautilus and minimize its offensive potential.

It was then that Holmes had sent Sawyer and Mina to escort a new prototype weapon back from a secret government installation in the countryside.

Nemo wondered what that weapon could be, and how could it stop such frightful brutes that have managed to advance towards London itself and wreak havoc in the east end. Should the weapon fail, which Nemo thought was likely, London's fall would be just the beginning, the extraterrestrial invaders would then move on to Europe and conquer

And so it would be the end of man.

* * *

**Now**

_Somewhere in the Atlantic_

An annoying incessant beeping started, waking the slumbering captain Nemo up from dreams of his distant past. With a groan, he sat up in his bed, rubbing his eyes and muttered a saucy curse in Hindi.

Standing up, the Indian walked away from his coat in his private quarters in the Submarine, which was submerged off the Mexican coast at the moment, towards a wide porcelain sink on the other end.

He washed his face, and casually looked at a passing fish through one of the windows as the beeping continued. He next turned on the lights before pulling on a blue sweater to cover up his naked torso, then headed towards the source of the alarm, a complex and sophisticated communication device that took up all of the bureau's space.

He sat on the swivel chair and pressed a button on the device's consol, the plasma screen which previously bore the title 'Red October attempting Communication' switched to display a bearded old man of seventy or so.

"Nemo," said the man in a mild Russian accent, "You had me worried."

"You needn't be, Mark," said Nemo with a little yawn he didn't care to hide, "I was only sleeping."

"Did you organize the latest cell yet?"

"I did. I've already dispatched them to Gotham City."

"I must say your choice of recruits have surprised me this time."

"He's a three-hundred year old member of one of the most powerful vampire dynasties and she's a skilled markswoman with over two-hundred kills under her belt. They're both sufficiently capable."

"Yes, but he's a drug dealer and she's a runaway convict. Don't you think their loyalties are a matter of concern?"

"Don't fool yourself, Mark. There are much worse than drug dealers in out midst, including yourself and I."

"That's not the point, they're not ideally committed to our cause. They're just in it for personal gain."

"Nothing's more reliable than a man whose loyalty can be bought." said Nemo, "Criminals they may be, but they're professionals and they will do what they're being paid to do."

The conversation paused for a moment, till Mark said, "Did they ask of what happened to the previous cell?"

"No." said Nemo bitterly.

"We're going to have to mend that problem, Nemo." said Mark, "Those three comrades of ours were killed by the League and we have to find out how they managed that."

"We already know," said Nemo, "We have a leak. The loyalty of one of ours lies with the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Whoever it is, I don't it's a member of any of the cells."

"Until we find some evidence of that person's identity, we must stay the course."

Mark paused for a second, "By the way, Sands informed me he's come across the name of Phoenix again."

"That's the seventh time in as many months," said Nemo, "Whatever it is, it must be in full swing by now. I shudder to think what it might be."

"Certainly, that'll be all. Goodbye, Captain."

"Goodbye, General."

Mark Raimus's face disappeared, leaving a single message detailing the duration of the conversation.

Nemo got up and turned the lights off, he then went to the window and looked at his domain for several minutes, wondering why did he bother with the surface world when he had the kingdom of the sea.

A mermaid appeared by to Nemo's surprise, as he hadn't seen one in a hundred and ten years. He could gaze upon the nubile, young, red haired female for only a brief moment before she was alerted to his existence and swam away in fright. A native of Atlantis she must have been.

The odd apparition wiped any desire ti sleep from Nemo, so he decided to leave his quarters and seek Pepper. He found the former Navy Sergeant in the crew's lounge, where he was engaged in a game of poker with four sailors. The men in the room stood to show him respect, but he simply waved them down, saying, "As you were, men."

He looked to Pepper directly and said, "Set the course to Mumbai, I'm in the mood for a brief vacation."

"Yes, Sir." said Pepper as he prepared to stand up.

"You needn't do it now." said Nemo while he looked at the poker table, then asked, "Texas Hold 'em?"

One of the sailors answered to the affirmative, and Nemo sat at an empty chair and said, "Deal me in."

* * *

As always, reviews are most welcome. 

Lava, I was already planing to use Ziggy Stardust, but only as a backgroend character.

If anyone was wondering, the characters are as sutch:

-Mona Sax: The Max Payne videogames.

-Judas Priest: The Bob Dylan Song 'The Ballad of FRankie Lee and Judas Priest', tied in with the Priest character from Blade II.

-Sgt. Pepper: From the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonley Hearts Club Band.

-Submarine: The Submarine from The Beatles song 'Yellow Submarine'.

-General Marko Raimus: Tom Clancy's Red October.

-Felix Leiter: From the James Bond movies and novels.

-D.R.I.: Demo's Research Initiative. From Joss Wheadon's Buffy and Angel.

Nemo and Bond you already know of, I should Mention that the Bond I'm using is from the Sean Connery era, whoich explains why he's an old man in this story..

Also, the events of 1901 are from trhe 2nd volume of the League comic books.


	6. Downtime

**One Week Later**  
_Gotham City, Maryland_

The door knob turned slowly, before the door was pushed open, and in walked Judas Priest. He walked slowly through the corridor to the coat closet, which he opened before taking off his jacket. Mona Sax sat at the kitchen island sipping from a cup of black coffee.

"Welcome home, darling husband of mine." said Mona flippantly.  
"Hey." said Priest as he dropped his leather jacket on the closet floor, he then shut the door and walked to the fridge and opened it, took a look then closed it, finding nothing to his liking.

"Are you drunk?" she asked.  
"Nope." said Priest as he took off his cowboy hat and placed it upside down on the table, before dropping his dark shades in it.

"Are you sure? You smell like you're drunk."  
"Vampires don't get drunk. Ever." he said as sat on a couch's side to take his cowboy boots off, "We're blessed that way."

Priest allowed himself to fall back onto the couch with a grunt.

"That damn landlady has been snooping around about us, asking if we were really married."  
"Did you shoot her?" asked Priest as he shut his eyes.  
"No."  
"I don't see why we had to pretend to be a couple anyway. What was Nemo hoping to accomplish? I'm beginning to wonder about him."

Mona kept quiet, while Priest went on, "What the hell was I thinking? Getting in bed with the guy just because he beat the shit out of Hannibal King, like that's so hard. Hell, I could have done it, I just never was in the mood."

"You slept with Nemo?" asked Mona with interest.  
"It's a figure of speech, doll." said Priest as he sat up, rubbing his temple, "A quart of Fish blood would really hit the spot right about now."

"Are you alright?" asked Mona, "You seem... off."  
"I'm not a morning person." said Priest as he stood up and headed for the bathroom, "I'm going to have a soak and sleep the rest of the day. If you're going out, try to swing by a Chinese place and ask for fish blood if you can."

* * *

_Mumbai, India_

A family sat at a table in a dinning room in an ample yet simple and cozy house, eating lunch. They were naturally all Indian, ranging in age from childhood to old age.

"So, Mister Dakkar," said a young woman of her twenties, "Where do you know my Grandfather from?"

Nemo flashed the oldest at the table, a man of ninety yet with a lucid mind, a quick look, and said, "My father served in the war with him."

"Yes," said the family's patriarch, "He did. We lived in the same neighborhood when we returned."

"Was he a sapper as well?" asked the young woman.  
"Zara," said a middle aged man who appeared to be her father, "Don't badger the gentleman."  
"I wasn't..."  
"It's no trouble." said Nemo, " Actually, my father stewarded a ship."  
"Really? I didn't know there were Indians captaining British ships at the time."  
"Well," said Nemo with a smile, "I don't believe the British wanted the their public to know we were catching up to them so fast."

There were a few scattered laughs.

"What do you for a living?" asked a young man of the girl's age.  
"I used to be a naval engineer. I'm currently at liberty, self employed, as it were."  
"Where did you study?" asked a bespectacled woman of her late forties as she passed her husband a bowl of salad.

"New York, Paris, London. I hear you're heading to one of those Cities yourself, Mrs. Rao."  
"Actually we're moving to San Francisco," said Kavita Rao, "How did you know?"  
"Your father is a very proud man."

The old man laughed and said, "But am I to blame?"

"My husband and I are moving to San Francisco, I've been offered a position with Worthington Labs."  
"And how do you feel about the move, Mr. Rao?"  
"Fine, really. Some friends in the University of California are arranging to offer me a teaching position with them as well." said the husband, "I couldn't bear to think what would happen to me if Kavita and I were separated."

"Oh, enough of that," said the old man cheerfully, "We have the rest of the day to talk, let us eat now."

**Later**

The house was empty, after the old man's guests had left,

"Finally, some quiet." said the old man as he and Nemo sat on a balcony enjoying cool breezes at sunset.  
"If you're tired I can come back tomorrow." said Nemo.  
"Kip Singh never prefers rest over the company of his old brothers in arms, Captain."

The two simply sat and enjoyed their surroundings for a few minutes in complete silence.

"I thought you were dead." said Singh, "What have you been doing for the last twenty years?"  
"My usual thing."  
"You're still at it with the League, then?"  
"Yes."  
"Listen, Nemo, have I ever told you about Hanah? The Canadian nurse I met in Italy during the war?"  
"Yes."  
"Well, she was the first woman I ever truly loved. When the war was over, we drifted apart, there were a plethora of reasons for it. Anyway, I was crushed when I saw her for the last time, I thought I could never love again.

"But then, I came back here, and I met Ruhi, I was whole again. I know there are times when the future seems so bleak, but it's not true that you can never go h-"  
"No, Kip." said Nemo sternly, "Do not attempt to sway my mind. You do not know what the League has done over the years, to mankind, to the world, to India!"

"Sorry, I don't know what I was thinking." said Kip, who didn't want to get into an argument, "So tell me, what really Brings you to Mumbai?"

"Vacation. I've been in constant motion for three years and feel some rest is in order."  
"Ahh, but there's no rest for you, Nemo."  
"Kip..."  
"I'm not saying anything, I'm merely stating the obvious."  
"Can we just... Enjoy our tea?"  
"Fine. Go prepare a pot."

* * *

_Cairo, Egypt_

Sayid Jarrah, a dark skinned and bearded man of thirty-seven sat at a table, spread before him was many documents and papers bearing a great deal of details regarding matters most boring.

Still, this was better than the Island.

He stood up from the table and walked away, intending to take a break. He did his best to avoid running into one of his partners, Aisha Fadhil. Aisha was a woman of her late twenties, with multiple piercing and raven black grid-locked hair.

He saw her in her room, wearing a revealing top and sharpening her massive dagger, she raised her eyes to look at him sharply. He didn't do anything to deserve it, she just tended to give every male she came in contact with that vicious, feral-like look.

Sayid took a cigarette out of a pack in pocket and struck a match to light it, then stepped onto the balcony where another of his partners was leaning against the railing, looking at the Nile river. The man's name was Fareed Almasry, nicknamed _Cairo Fred_, he was a fair skinned, well built, gray haired man of sixty.

Fareed turned to look at him, and appeared as if he was about to say something, before simply nodding and turning back to look at the legendary river.

Sayid smoked in silence, as he recollected the events that led him to this place. He was on a plain a few years ago, heading from Sidney to Los Angeles where he hoped to be reunited with a long lost love, their flight crashed onto an uncharted island in the south pacific, where he and the others surviving passengers were stranded for a long time. The thing is, the Island was not normal in the least, kidnap, murder and other unusual events were the norm over there, and it appeared that their crash was not a simply accident.

When they were finally rescued, he was approached by a man known as Robert Barnes, who identified himself as a former CIA Agent, presumed dead by his employers. Barnes informed him that their crash was engineered by a secret Intelligence Agent known as the League, he explained to him the nature of this organization and what were the things they did, furthermore, he provided proof to the validity of his claims. Barnes then went on to make Sayid an offer, to join a movement of individuals with an Agenda to cripple the League forever.

Sayid had reasons to dislike the CIA, but upon listening to what Barnes had to say, he felt compelled to accept his offer.

Barnes explained to him that the opposition was scattered across the world in cells, and that there were four major minds behind the whole operation, on of whom was an ex-Soviet Naval General, piloting the submarine known as Red October, his name was Marko Raimus. And so it was that the four of them met and started working in Cairo for ten so far at this point.

Their un-official leader was Barnes, an American ex-Spy, who had formidable experience due to operating in the Middle East for decades. Next was Aisha Fadhil, a deadly, ruthless and cunning Afghan Rebel. Then there was Fareed 'Cairo Fred' Almasry, a former Egyptian Intelligence Service Agent and Assassin. And finally there was him, Sayid Jarrah, former communication officer and Interrogator with the Iraqi Republican Guard, not to mention a CIA informant for a brief period.

The cigarette was done; it was time to go back to work.

* * *

All dialog is translated from Hindi.

A little bit slow, I know, I'm a bit busy these days, but I didn't want to keep you waiting too long.

Boot, I would have liekd to use Ash Williams, but I havn't seen any of Evil Dead.

Lava, what Bone power are you refering to? I was listening to American Idiot today and didn't notice anything like that. Also, Gotham is supposed to be either in New York or New Jersey, but I had already used both, and I thought Maryland would be a nic eplace to place Gotham in.

In case you're wondering:

1. Kip Singh is the Sikh sapper from the movie 'The English Patient'.

2. Kavita Rao is from 'X:Men : The Last Stand', kee in mid that the events of this story occur in 2007, a few months before the X-Men trilogy.

3. Sayid Jarrah is from Lost, I have based his character on Season 1 as it is all I have seen so far. SO DON'T SPOIL IT FOR ME. :)

4. Aisha Fadhil is from Ady Diggle's the Losers comic book.

5. Ben Barnes in from Syriana.

6. Cairo Fred is from one of the Pink Panther Movies.


	7. Day One

**One Week Later**  
_Gotham City, Maryland_

Nemo, Priest and Mona stood atop the roof of a derelict building a few minutes after sunset. "Do you see that building right there?" asked Nemo as he pointed at a building in the distance, situated within reasonable distance of the City's unofficial center; Wayne Tower.

"That's the Novick building." said Mona.  
"Correct. It allegedly houses the offices of twelve companies and businesses."  
"Allegedly?" asked Priest.  
"It is in reality, the Gotham City Branch of the League's headquarters." said Nemo before turning to face them, "It will also be your target."

"Target?" asked Priest, "Target for what? Do you want us to attack it? Cowboy our way in and rape, pillage and plunder? Well, maybe not so much rape..."

"Not at this point," said Nemo, "Your mission statement will be surveillance for the time being.

"As I've already told you, the League consists of Seven Members, each Running a Branch in a major city, all around the world. These seven are overseen by a senior member, James Bond, Codenamed Jahbulon, he is a formal British SIS Agent, recruited into the League in the early seventies. He rose through the ranks to his current position.

"Each of the Branch leaders has a Codename that is passed down from Branch Leader to branch Leader. We have discovered the real Identities of most of them, with the notable exception of the Gotham City and Caracas Branches.

"Codename Josephine is the one you are tasked to discover, she runs the Gotham Branch."

"How the hell are we supposed to do that?" asked Priest.  
"I've picked you two for a reason." said Nemo with a sly smile, "Surprise me."

"Here's a question, why the secrecy surrounding Josephine and the Venezuela guy?"  
"The Caracas Branch Head, Codenamed Hugo, was Assassinated two months ago, not by us, mind you. He must have been replaced, our men in Caracas are working on it. Josephine on the other hand, is especially vicious, and would do anything to maintain her anonymity."  
"Meaning what, exactly?"  
"I mean that the seven men I've known who have been in contact with her have died. One of which was only three months ago, which led to the capture of the two others of his cell. I never said this would be easy.

"Now, I have some business to tend to, but I'll be in the City for a few days. I've arranged for my men to deliver some equipment to this building."

"This building?" asked Priest, "Here I was thinking we were holed up pretending to be a couple in a nice two bedroom apartment across town."  
"Orientation is over, Priest," said Nemo as he headed to the door that led to the stairs, "Welcome to the gritty part."

* * *

**January, 1901**

Captain Nemo stood near the West End of London Bridge, the cold wind toying with his massive beard. He looked upon the river themes, covered by the red weed the invading martians had released.

Sawyer and Mina had returned just an hour ago, alone. When asked by Campion Bond regarding the whereabouts of Skinner, they said they had no idea where he went, and that they last saw him in his carriage on the train half-way to the government installation they visited. They said that he had simply vanished, leaving his coat, gloves, boots, hat and grease paint behind. They had brought back the weapon in a crate as Sawyer said, it was delivered to an army squad at the train station.

There they all stood, Nemo, the Jekylls, Sawyer and Bond, looking across the river at nearly three dozen Martian tri-pods that have gathered there, having just wreaked havoc all over the East End, simply waiting.

"They must think we have artillery here, that's why they haven't crossed yet." said Bond as he nervously struck a match to light a cuban cigar lodged between his teeth, "We have no such thing, and soon they will realize it. And then..."

Bond didn't finish, not that he needed to anyway, it was clear to everyone what would follow.

Nemo looked out the corner of his eye at Dr. Jekyll, who stood violently toying with his pocket watch, looking as odd as he ever did , Nemo even thought he could hear him faintly growling.

"What's this red stuff?" asked Sawyer.  
"It's some sort of Alien Weed. It expands tremendously upon contact with Water, I believe they have released it as a means to immobilize the Nautilus."  
"But how could they have managed something like this?" asked Mina.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" exclaimed Bond, "It's that bastard Skinner, why else would he choose to escort the two of you to Doctor Moreau's installation and disappear on the way? He must have sold us out to the Martians!"

Nemo thought about what Bond said for a moment, for a second he thought it was possible, but changed his mind quickly, it wasn't like Skinner to do such a thing.

"Jesus Christ..." muttered Sawyer, "I think they're getting ready to move."

Sawyer's observation was accurate, as three tri-pods appeared to be preparing to cross the bridge in a triangular formation.

"God, Blind me." cursed Bond.

"Do you plan on releasing this weapon of yours anytime soon?" asked Nemo.  
"It isn't ready, the assigned army squad needs at least five more minutes." said Bond as he looked at his watch, "We're doomed."

"What? Are you saying there's nothing we can do?" asked Sawyer anxiously, Nemo sensed Jekyll's fidgeting with watch increase terribly.

"If only we could delay them," said Bond, "Just long enough till the weapon is delivered."

A noticeable metallic click was heard, the group's focus turned to Jekyll, who had shut his watch and put it into his breast pocket, "I'll do it." he quietly said.

* * *

**Now**

_Manhattan, New York_

Bond couldn't help but notice the young woman who walked down the corridor in his direction, carrying a few folders and a cup of coffee in her hands.

She was slightly taller than average, her hair was Blonde and wavy, she moved with hypnotic grace and elegance. She stood out due to her age, as she appeared no older than twenty, perhaps even younger. She wore black high heeled shoes and a low cut brown dress.

Vaughn stopped talking and smiled as he noticed his superior's attention was elsewhere at the moment.

"She's a vampire."

Bond smiled, "Of course she is. That would explain her age, I suppose."

The Blonde bombshell turned to the left, heading into a different corridor and out of Bond and Vaughn's attention.

"As I was saying, Mister Leiter will see you now." said Vaughn as he led Bond to the New York Branch Director's office.

Once in the ample office, Vaughn took his leave, Leiter got up from his desk and walked to the still standing Bond, the two aged former super-spies embraced each other.

"Jimmy, you old son of a gun. Good to see you." said Leiter, laughing before letting go of his friend and heading to a cabinet by one of the walls.

"Vesper?" asked Leiter, as he opened the cabinet, revealing a mini-bar.  
"Yes."

"I gotta hand it to ya," said Leiter as he prepared a vodka martini, "At this age, I wouldn't know how to handle all the moving you do."  
"Well..." said Bond.

"I know, there's the Leg." said Leiter as he paused to knock on his prosthetic left leg, "But still... Enough about that, I understand this is your last stop before getting back to London?"

"Yes it is. So, how's the job? And your son?"  
"Richard is having another kid. Him and his wife keep telling me I should retire, leave Manhattan and move to Florida with them. Hah! That'll be the day."

Leiter handed Bond his drink while he poured himself a glass of Cognac.

"The job is running tip-top. Hell, at the rate we're doing work, I might get to take some time off this summer."  
"You already have my approval."  
"Thanks. Yourself?"  
"As usual. The President and I talked the other day, he assures me he's on board with us for the rest of his term."

"I'm meeting him next week. It's a shame he won't be around in 2012, when Phoniex will be in full swing."

"I've also had to let my personal Assistant go."  
"Pregnancy?"

Bond looked wide-eyed at Felix, not entirely sure how to respond to what he heard.

Felix burst laughing, "Oh Jim. If only you could use the look on your face! Come on, I didn't mean it that way. One of my staff had to take off on the count of her getting pregnant, that's why I asked."

"Oh, no. Drugs, actually. She tested positive on a random drug sweep."  
"Drugs, huh? Shame."  
"Yes, it is. I haven't had the time to replace her as of yet."  
"Well, we have some excellent girls here."  
"Sure you do."

Both drinks were done with, the two former spies put down their glasses.

"So, to business?" asked Leiter.  
"Yes. Let's start with Project Phoniex."


	8. Gloomy Gus

**Five Days Later, Midnight**

_ Gotham City, Maryland_

The microwave beeped three times, Priest opened it and pulled out the bag of now-warm-blood inside, cut the tip and poured it into a pint glass. He walked bare-footed on the cold and squeaky wooden floor, towards a computer screen displaying paused surveillance footage from the last two days. He took a sip as he pressed a button, causing the footage to resume.

"You know, I don't really think this is working." said Mona as she walked in from her room, tying her long black hair in a ponytail.

"Me neither, but hey, we're getting paid to do it."

"We're getting paid to find out that Josephine is, not being voyeurs."

"Preaching to the choir, doll. I don't see how all this ties into our areas of expertise, either. You think we should talk to Nemo?"

"Tell him what exactly? I don't think we should go to him less we have some kind of plan."

"Plan, right. So, who is Max?"

"Max??" asked Mona.

"Yeah, you were moaning his name in your sleep."

"I..He...you were listening to me sleeping?"

"Vampyric super hearing, cupcake. I can hear two roaches having sex in a can on the street down the window.

"Really?"

"Nah, but I could hear you moaning 'Max' pretty clear. So, who is he?"

"He's... My cat."

"Your cat? You were moaning your cat's name in your sleep?"

"Yeah."

"What kind of cat is it?"

"Look, just leave it alone."

"Fine, you should have just said it. Wanna take over, now?"

"Okay."

Both then switched position, Mona at the monitor and Priest at the couch.

"Not like it's gonna do us any good, really. There's hundreds of people going in and out of that building everyday. Even if we take away the men and those too young to be Josephine, there's still the strong probability that she gets into the building through the underground garage, like any self-respecting diabolical mastermind does, and we can't access the damn thing."

"I know, Priest. But what can we do?"

"Well, what if we get in there, plant some bugs?"

"Sound logical, except for the part where we march in there expecting nobody is going to stop us. We were on the red list, Priest; that means they know us and know what we look like."

"I'm not saying we should get to the top, I'm just saying that we should go in, have a little look around and fuck right off. We'll probably stick to the lower levels."

Mona turned around in her swivel chair to face Priest, and said as she put her feet on the coffee table, "Alright, my interest is piqued. What else do you have in mind?"

"Not much, I'm not much on the sneaky. Way Nemo talked of you on the drive to New York; that was your specialty."

"Flattery will get you no where, but he was more or less telling you the truth."

"Watching all the footage, I picked up on a few things that could be useful. Like, there's a supply truck that comes on every other day, a little bit after rush hour traffic, and makes its way to the garage. I figure that I can track down the truck in a couple of days, and cling to the bottom when it's stuck in traffic. Once I'm in the garage, I'll stay out of sight of patrolling guards, which I can manage. Josephine is bound to have her reserved parking space. I'll fix in a camera that'll feed to us, after a while we're going to get a nice little snapshot of her."

"Too many holes in it, sorry. But you've got cameras to think about too, and the guards are not going to be easy to handle. Besides, if we fit in a camera, they might catch the signal being transmitted to us, which can then give them our location."

"Okay, then. What's your idea?"

"Well, off the top of my head. We use the building's mail system. We sneak you in, as a bottom level employee and..."

A laptop started beeping, it was one other than the computer they used for monitoring. Nemo had given it to them as their single link to him, capable of direct communication with the Yellow Submarine through satellite, it was also untraceable.

Mona and Priest exchanged a look, "Do you think Nemo heard us scheming and called to tell us to knock it off?"

Mona opened the laptop up, the screen displayed a flashing rectangle with stationary text inside it, reading 'Yellow to Gotham transmission, Pending receiver's Approval'.

Mona pressed the enter button, and Nemo instantly appeared, sitting in the Submarine's main Cabin as could be realized if one noticed Pepper in the background.

" Gotham, do you read me?"

"Loud and clear." said Mona.

"I have an assignment for you."

"What, more surveillance?" asked Priest.

"No, this one calls for some of the significant amount of brute force on your part, as per our agreement."

"Peachy, what's the score?" asked Priest.

"There's a freighter bound for the Gotham Harbor, I need you to intercept it, seize the ship and subdue the crew. Use discretion if possible, and brute force if necessary. Nothing is to happen to the cargo, I can't stress the importance of that."

"We understand. But, you don't really need us for that. Your crew can handle something like that pretty easy?"

"Neither my crew or my Submarine are in Gotham at the moment." said Nemo, "We had to move down the coast, we're making our way back. But the ship we'll be in the docks under two hours, we won't be there in time."

"Alright, no problem." said Priest.

"Excellent. Stand by for information."

Nemo disappeared and a message requesting approval for incoming data appeared, Mona pressed the enter button while Priest sat to put his boots on.

"Its about time I had some gratuitous violence."

* * *

**Later**

Priest and Mona stood in the stolen boat's cabin, a few miles out of Gotham Harbor, looking at the laptop's screen which displayed the course taken by the incoming freighter. Mona shut the boat's lights.

"There they are." said Mona as she pointed at a ship in the distance.

"Tops." said Priest as he walked out of the cabin, taking his jacket off, "I'll head out, make some noise, and you come in undetected."

"Priest, that's..."

Before Mona could finish, Priest had jumped in the water and started swimming in a straight line towards the ship with impressive speed.

"That's the dumbest plan I've ever heard." said Mona to herself in frustration, then headed back into the cabin to steer it in the ship's direction.

Upon arriving, Priest climbed up the smooth metallic side of the ship, like a spider. Once near the top, he slowed down and listened, two men were talking. He waited in silence till the conversation ended and he heard one of them walk away. Judas hurled himself upward, catching one of the deckhands' neck as he landed and twisting it violently, before the other could turn to investigate the snapping sound, the vampire had already approached him with lightening speed and sunk his teeth into his neck, before tearing out a chunk of flesh, sending a spray of blood out of his victim's jugular as he collapsed.

Priest spat the flesh out of his mouth, and picked up both with ease and tossed them overboard, then looked for a rope which he tied to the railing, and tossed the rest into the water.

He silently stalked his way around the ship, looking for any crewmen, and finally made his way to the main cabin, where he happened upon an old sailor, standing alone by the helm.

"Hey, old bean." greeted Priest as he leaned over the threshold, his hands clinging to the doorway's frame, "Are we all by our lonesome?"

The Captain turned around slowly, he had a small wooden pipe lodged between his teeth, one of his eyes was perpetually shut, was stubbly, bald and seemed to have been muscular in his younger days, his forearms were particularly massive, they bore sea-anchor tattoos.

"Not even close, Jerkwad." said the sailor in a gruff voice.

Priest heard several safety pins being removed from guns made ready to fire, "Hands up." said the old sailor as he reached for a shotgun, while Priest looked on, grinning and attempting nothing else. Priest raised his hands and slowly turned around, to look upon six crewmen aiming shotguns and pistols at him.

"Get on the floor, you piece of shit." said the old sailor as he pressed his shotgun into Priest's spine, "Or it's back to hill-billy heaven for you."

"Yeah, yeah..." said Priest, a split-second before he turned around to grab the shotgun by the barrel and forcing it away from his back. The sailor instinctively reacted by pulling the trigger, blowing three of Priest's fingers in the process, the latter swiftly whipped the rifle up into his face, knocking him out.

The six crewmen fired, and Priest managed to twist out of the way of all bullets but one that hit him in the chest. He leaped at them, growling with animalistic fury, and head-butted one of them to the ground, shattered one's nose with a punch, threw his elbow into one's neck, chopped the fourth in the throat and finally ripped the fifth's throat open with his teeth, and as he stood there, feeding off the halfway-shocked to death crewman, he felt something like a metallic tube press into the back of his head, in the point where his skull met his spinal column.

This was it, he thought. There was a gunshot, and the barrel was there no more.

Priest stood in his place then dropped the dying crewman, loosing the mood to feed. He looked behind to see the sixth crewman whose brains and blood were spilling out of his temple, he was still clutching his shotgun with his right index finger on the trigger.

Mona approached him, raising a smoking gun, "Are you alright, Priest?"

Priest raised his wounded hand, "I lost a couple of digits, it'll grow back, so no bother."

"What the hell was that? Were you trying to get yourself killed?"

"Let's not get carried away."

"That guy could've blown your head right off. So unless you can grow your head back, I don't think I'm over reacting. Nemo told us to do this smooth, this is NOT smooth."

"Fine, whatever. Look, we've got five unconscious, let's tie 'em up."

Priest walked into the cabin to get some rope, and the two spent the next two minutes silently securing the four men.

"Hey, pappy..." said Priest as he slapped the old sailor in the cabin, "Wakey wakey."

"Whatever you want..." said the old man in fright before hew was cut off.

"Glad to see we agree. The cargo hold, we want in. How?"

"The cargo hold? What the hell do you.."

Priest grabbed the man by the collar.

"Wait, just WAIT!!" said the old man in panic, "There's a combination, its 2 - 35 - 2- 13 - 10 - 33."

"Got that?" asked Priest as he looked at Mona.

"Yeah, I'll go check it right now. And Priest..."

"I know, I know. I'll be discrete as hell."

Mona left them two, and Priest stood up, not bothering to tie up the old sailor.

"Get up, I want you to stop this thing from moving."

The old man obliged, and a minute later the ship had noticeably decreased its speed, on its way to absolute lack of motion.

Priest sniffed the air twice and said, "God damn, son. This place smells Marijuana and …. spinach?"

The old sailor glanced at his fallen pipe for a second. Priest leaned down to pick it up. He held it to his nose and took a whiff.

"Sweet mother of Pete! Is this…. Shame on you, old timer." said Priest, before he bit down on the mouthpiece and struck a match to light it.

Elsewhere on the ship, Mona had just unlocked the door to the cargo hold, she opened the door and raising a shotgun she took from a dead crewman, walked in.

"Jesus Christ..."


	9. American Nightmare

**Now**

_Gotham City, Maryland_

"So," asked Priest as he took another drag from the sailor's pipe, "What the hell are ya lugging around in this boat?"

"Live stock." said the sailor in his gravely voice.

Priest could hear someone calling faintly, so he stepped out of the cabin and listened intently.

"Priest! Priest!"

"Wha?" he shouted back, his speech distorted due to the pipe in his mouth.

"Get your mid-western ass over here, now!"

Priest stepped back into the cabin and grabbed the sailor by the shoulders, saying, "Come on, sailorman."

He led the old man across the deck, heading towards the ship's cargo hold, the old man stumbled and almost tripped numerous times, but Priest kept him moving the whole time.

Upon arriving, they found Mona standing by an ajar door, looking directly at the sailor.

"Where's the fire?" asked Priest.

"Take a look." said Mona.

Priest let go of the sailor then pulled the heavy door open, and starred at what lay behind.

"I'll be damned..." he muttered, and the pipe fell to the floor.

He was met by the over a hundred pairs of bright and frightful eyes, belonging to a group of Asian women, huddled together in the tight space, dressed in crumpled and long unwashed clothes. They varied in age, though most were in their twenties.

To Mona's slight surprise, Priest said something in an Asian sounding language, to which one of the women replied with a trembling and hesitant voice.

"What did you say?" asked Mona.

"I asked if they were alright, she said they're all alive, but seven of them are sick."

Priest then said something else, he didn't bother translating for Mona, but she sensed through his tone that he was comforting them and promising them no harm.

Priest turned around, and grabbed the old man by the collars, yelling with fury, "LIVE STOCK?! You bastard, I oughta gut you, boy!"

"Priest, no. Not right now." said Mona as she pulled Priest back, and the sailor's knees buckled and he fell to the floor, breathing hard.

"Priest, just calm down." said Mona as she restrained the vampire.

"They're.. they're... Jesus Fuck.." muttered Priest.

"Where are they from?" asked Mona.

What they hadn't noticed is that the sailor had fainted, and he was unable to answer their questions.

"They're Koreans." said Priest, "What the hell does Nemo have to do with this?"

* * *

"Illegal immigrants," said Nemo, "They seek to escape horrible circumstances in their home countries, so they try to come here and get a fresh start. Most of them can't pay the price, so they're forced into something not unlike slavery, they are sold to organized crime organizations to work in sweat-shops, drug labs, prostitution..." 

"You'd have to crawl right outta hell to look for refuge in Gotham." said Priest grimly as he leaned by the railing, looking at the yellow vessel. The submarine was surfaced right next to the ship, Nemo's men were making their way onboard, some of them attempted to coax the passengers out, despite not being able to speak their language. Priest didn't bother volunteering to act as an interpreter.

"Now what?" asked Mona.

"As Priest said, this is no place to make a fresh start, we'll transport them to somewhere they can be safe."

"Here's a question," said Priest, "Why are we here? What does this have to do with the League?"

"Nothing. How better than the League would we be if we did nothing about this?"

Priest didn't believe him, knowing that he had some ulterior motive for rescuing these women, but he didn't feel strongly about looking for a motive to do what they had done, so he left it at that and dryly said, "Right, Good Samaritan business."

"Now, will you kindly translate for my crew and tell these unfortunate women to get into my submarine."

"Alright." muttered Priest as he headed to assist the crew, "These women were stuck in that cargo hold for god knows how long, and you're going to stick them in another tube. But whatever..."

Mona rolled her eyes at the little outburst.

"Will you take him with you?" asked Mona, "To translate, I mean."

"No. You're stuck with him, I'm afraid."

Mona smiled at the little joke, "How will you communicate with them, then?"

"I have my ways, trust me. Any luck with the surveilance?"

"No. We figure that we're going nowhere, we think we need to take some direct action."

"What do you mean?"

"We were thinking about plans when you contacted us, but mostly, we think we should infiltrate the league itself, plant-"

"Absolutely not."

"Wait a minute-"

"That's the exact same way we lost the previous Gotham Cell. My answer in no, and that's final. You can research other ways to discover Josephine's identity, and if and when find a plausible plan, contact me and I'll judge if it is to be followed or not."

Nemo spoke with strict conviction, leaving no room to argue, he then turned around and headed off before Mona could say anything.

" Men."

* * *

**April, 1912**

Ellis Island, New York

"What's your name, son?"

The man looked up at the officer and said, "Jude Priest."

The officer nodded as he scribbled the name down in his notebook, then looked down on the soaking wet survivor and asked.

"Don't you need a blanket?" asked the officer.

"No, thank you. I'm quite alright."

"You're gonna catch something, son. Let me get you a blanket, you're no about to survive the ship-wreck of the century and die from a cold." said the officer with a smile as he left to fetch him a blanket.

Priest looked all around himself, at other frightened survivors as they sat there, shivering and trembling, and not just because of the cold, the shock of what had happened within the last day was too much to handle. The abrupt catastrophic destruction of the 'ship that couldn't by sunk' had made them realize how uncertain everything was, and how the whole world, beneath its facade of civilization could very well be entirely out of control.

He briefly fixated on a young, beautiful brown haired woman, she was not much older than twenty, or only two hundred and twelve years younger than he. He thought he heard her mention her name as _Rose Dawson_. She was trembling like everyone else, but didn't really seem frightened, just simply lost in her own thoughts. He contemplated approaching her, offering some reassuring company, maybe lend her a shoulder to cry on, and perhaps they could find some warmth in each other for the time being.

Priest quickly changed his mind, as his circumstances were unlike most of everyone here. Sunrise would come soon, and he had to find somewhere safe to hide till the following night.

He stood up abruptly, catching Rose's attention, she looked at him with slight intrigue, and he looked back. For seconds they looked into each other's eyes. He offered the faintest of smiles, the only smile he could manage at the moment, and she simply looked down, retreating into her own thoughts.

He turned around and walked away from Rose, briefly feeling remorse for not knowing if he would ever meet this creature again.

This marked his sixty-ninth year away from his homeland; Scotland. Since the day he left, he had stalked the world, looking for somewhere he could belong, his travels had taken him all across Europe, to Japan, Algeria and Russia, to name a few. Finding no place he could call his own, he found himself wandering back to England, where he spent three years in misery, trying to muster up the courage to make his way back to Scotland, where he'd beg the family to forgive his transgressions and betrayals, and implore them to find it in them to allow him back in.

But then, just as he was about to make the final arrangements to make the trip, he had happened upon a ticket to America, onboard the Titanic, pride of the ocean liner industry, on her maiden voyage across the Atlantic, by a fat American industrialist who was smitten by one of Priest's many female companions. Opting to spend a few more months in the woman's bed and away from his family in the states, he gave his ticket to Priest, as a token of appreciation for introducing them.

He had been in America before, but that was long ago, the place had changed considerably since then and he thought he owed it to himself to give it another chance, as a last ditch effort to find his promised land, before he would do the inevitable and head back to the Highlands.

And here he was, just another survivor of the incident that would capture both sides of the Atlantic for the time to come. It was an omen, he thought, but to what? He did not know. Was it the start of his downfall, or merely the collapse of his former life and his rebirth? Only time could tell.

He paused to look up, at the statue he had heard of over the years. Lady Liberty stood raising her torch, inviting them all, promising them a fresh start. He looked at her briefly, just like he looked at Rose earlier and with similar affection. Priest looked back down and started walking away.

It was time to discover America.

* * *

**Now**

_Somewhere beneath the waters of the Atlantic_

The elderly Korean woman avoided eye contact with any of the sailors she passed as she was being escorted by the ship's second mate to an unknown destination.

After spending weeks at sea in harsh conditions, with barely enough food to eat, they had been captured by the crew of this mysterious submarine. Most of the women were initially panicked, having not expected to change vessels at all, and despite the assurances of the man on the ship that could speak their language that no harm would befall them, they had assumed the worse and only agreed because they really didn't have a choice in the matter.

Since last night, they had relaxed a bit, as they were served an unexpectedly well prepared meal, the ship's medical officer tended to the ailing women and they were given clean clothes and the chance to shower. The crew's decent treatment to them contrasted their previous hosts' regard to them as mere property, and so their spirits were uplifted, despite feeling mistrust towards their hosts and not knowing what the future held for them.

She, however, grew more restless, deciding that they hadn't been rescued as an act of mercy, but that whoever these people were, had taken them in for a reason, and she dared guess what that reason was; herself.

She was led into a room where the vessel's Captain sat on a chair next to a table with some papers on it, the only things in the otherwise utterly empty chamber. She looked at the Captain thoroughly, he was dark skinned and clean shaven, studying his features she came to realize he was an Indian.

The second mate gestured for her to sit on a chair opposite the captain, and she did. The crewman nodded at the Captain and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

She sat there, feeling utterly helpless as the man eyed her. Glimpsing his eyes, she felt a chill running up her spine, those terrible black eyes of him looked like the pits of hell themselves.

"Are you being well taken care of?" asked Nemo.

She didn't answer and simply gave him a glassy confused look, hoping she could fool him.

"Is there anything you need? This may be a submarine, but we are very well stocked. How about tampons, do you need any?"

She was baffled by the query to say the least, but stuck to giving him the glassy look.

"You can drop the act, I know you can understand me perfectly, Professor."

The professor lowered her head, then raised it to look at the Captain directly.

"So, you've come for me after all." she said in clear and unbroken English, "What is it that you want from me?"

"Phoenix."

The Professor was startled by the mention of the seven letter word, "What?"

"A few years ago, you were approached by a covert Intelligence Agency known as the League. They needed you to act as an advisor in your field in a Project Codenamed Phoenix. Once you had outlived your usefulness, they tried to have you eliminated, but you managed to evade them, which is not an easy task, and I applaud you for being able to do it. Seeking to escape the League's reach, you've decided to take refuge in America. Ironically enough, there is a Branch of the League in Gotham City, they would have picked you up within an hour."

Nemo leaned back as he continued, "I give you my word, nothing will befall the women, I will transport them to somewhere they can make a fresh start, somewhere better than Gotham. As for yourself, you will be taken to somewhere where the League has minimal reach, that is if you help us."

"In exchange of what?"

"I need you to act as my liaison with the other women, seeing as none of my crew speaks Korean well enough.

Nemo then leaned forward and said, "And more importantly, I want you to tell me everything you know about Phoenix."

"Or what?" asked the Professor, "What guarantees you won't kill me when I had 'outlived my usefulness'?"

"Nothing." said Nemo dryly, "But then, what choice do you have?"

The Professor paused to consider and to ponder her utter lack of alternatives.

"I can't help you with much." she said eventually, "It was all on a need-to-know basis."

Nemo pushed forward the legal pad and handed her a pen.

"Write it all down, I want dates, location, names. I want _everything_."

* * *

That's it, folks. I'll be taking a hiatus from now on, meaning they're be updates once a week at the most, it should be back in full swing by the 20th of June. Thanks for the reviews and keep em coming.

No, lava, its not any of the things you mentioned, its a little more mundane but a lot more diabolical. Boot, you're coming up soon, I hope you feel fine with being a villain and having the last name Costas.


	10. Enter the Saints

**Eighteen Hours Ago**  
_Gotham City, Maryland_

"How come you can speak Korean?" asked Mona as she and Priest walked into their apartment, just as dawn was breaking.

"It was part of my D.R.I. training." said Priest as he kicked off his boots and fell back first onto the couch, "So, Nemo shut that plan of ours down, huh?"  
"Pretty much, we better work on a new strategy."

"Eh? You've lost me."  
"Our strategy was to try to get with Josephine's vicinity and try to photograph her to be identified, which is all wrong. Maybe what we should do is get to someone who would know who Josephine is."

Priest paused to consider, "Not bad. But who would know that?"  
"What's the answer to twenty-nine out of thirty questions?" asked Mona as she sat on her the arm chair opposite to Priest.  
"Love?" asked Priest flippantly, "Kidding... I donno, Money?"  
"Yes, it is. Something as big as the League has got to have a lot of funds running around for it to keep operating, funds so big, that it's impossible to hide. And I'm wiling to bet it doesn't get the capital from Sunday church donations. We find out who had business dealings with the Gotham Branch of the League, they would definitely have met Josephine, and they'll give her away if we play our cards right.""

"I guess that would work, let's do it."

* * *

**Ten Hours Ago**  
_Manhattan, New York_

James Saint opened his eyes, and slowly sat up, rubbed his eyes and got up from his cot, then walked to the only window and pulled the blinds to let in the sunlight, or as much sunlight anyone could get in this City of the Damned.

He was a young man of twenty-five; medium built with black hair and wore only socks and blue jeans.

He looked out of the window at the concrete forest they called the big apple, he eyed every sky scraper within his range of view, as he did every morning since he had arrived here, eventually setting his sights on a certain building, the one he spent the most time gazing upon, the one he had came here, the one that was the center of universe, it was his adversary's lair; Kong Tower.

He looked at it with utter contempt and hate, and simply said in a whisper, "One day."

Having his fill for the day, he stepped away from the window and kneeled down to pick up a black hooded sweater with a large image of Che Guevara on the front, he put it on then stuck his feet into a pair of heavy black boots, not bothering to tie the laces, then exited his room.

"Mornin'." said the man sitting at the breakfast table in an Irish brogue.

"Hey." said Saint as he opened the fridge to look for something to eat among the endless bottle of Guinness, "Where's your brother."

"It's Tuesday."  
"Oh, right."

James Saint, or St. Jimmy as he was known to some was born in Jingletown, California, as someone else, he was a rebel with fifty-seven causes and one third of the New York Cell of the movement aiming to destroy the League of Extraordinary, which had a branch here in Manhattan, located in Kong Tower.

The other two members of the cell were Connor and Murphy McManus; The Boondock Saints, as the Boston Press had dubbed them. They were twin Irish immigrants, once living in Boston, once average hard-working brothers, till they had ran afoul of the Russian mob, and had to murder some of them in order to survive. They claim that on the night following the day they did it, they had both heard the voice of god in their sleep, telling them that it had fallen upon them to cleanse their city of the filth that infested it, and so they became the scourge of the criminal underworld; Vigilantes, striking precisely and mercilessly with uncompromising ruthlessness at the heard of corruption.

Jimmy was arguably the brains behind the local Cell, though the Brothers McManus were certainly intelligent in their own right as they both spoke five languages, but Jimmy had a knack for effectively using guerilla tactics, as well as being skilled with some weapons and other equally destructive skills.

They had all been recruited by a man called Jack Mason, a former British Intelligence operative and one of the masterminds behind the opposition, and due to the twins' moniker and Jimmy's own last name, they were dubbed the Saints.

Connor, the older brother walked through the front door, he shut the door and took off his long black coat as he said "It's set; she's leavin'."

"I'll send word to Mason." said Jimmy as he went to look for the laptop.

* * *

**Fifteen Hours Earlier**  
_Gotham City, Maryland_

A brown haired, mustached man of his mid forties stepped out of a police squad car, pausing for a moment to wipe his glasses clean before walking to where the other officers had gathered. He was no stranger to the docks, as he had patrolled them in his old days in uniform, as well as investigating several trafficking-related crimes since being made a Detective, although he didn't manage to do much till about a year ago when a certain ally started making his demonic presence known in the city.

"Hi, Jim..." said a heavy set and generally disgusting man as he took notice of the arriving Lieutenant.

"Bollock. What do we got?" said Gordon as he walked by Bollock towards the cause of the police's presence in the Docks at this time, a freighter named the Gloomy Gus.

"Coast guards noticed the ship parked four miles into the ocean, when they wouldn't respond on the radio, they got onboard and found five bound and gagged crewmen, including the captain, plus two dead bodies; ripped throat and gun shot wound. They were smuggling Koreans illegally."

"Were?"  
"At first I thought it was the Bat-Freak..."  
"Definitely not."  
"Yeah, well, the surviving crew men said that a guy somehow got onboard, finished two of them before they found him. The Captain shot a couple of the guy's fingers off before getting knocked out. When he came to, two of his men were dead and the rest were all sleeping it off. They were asking for the cargo and he got them in, the guy gut real hot and bothered when he found what it was and knocked the Captain out. When he woke up again, he found himself getting untied and arrested by the coad, and the two assailants and the illegals were all gone."

"Jesus Christ..."  
"He had a partner, Captain said there was a woman. He only saw her when all his men were out of it."  
"Did you get a description?"

"We got a description of the male assailant, as for the woman, the Captain says he never saw her clearly, they were in the dark when he got close to her and his eyes aren't all that or something. All we got was an approximate height. She was about 5'6". He was 5'8", medium build, Caucasian, neck length black hair and spoke with a Midwestern accent."

"We'll run a search for the guy's description and look up known associates. If these two took away the women, they must have needed a boat, run a search for that too."  
"You got it." said Bollock as he went to walk away, "Hey Gordon, do you think these are getting on the bandwagon?"  
"Bandwagon?"

Bollock stopped and said, "The freak-versus-crime bandwagon. First we got that Bat, I hear about this guy who calls himself the Question in Hub City, New York is loaded with these assholes and now this. We better face it, Jimbo, the world is changing."

* * *

**Now**

"Lemme ask you something, Mona," said Priest as he stood resting his elbows on the open window frame, looking out at the city, "Do you trust Nemo?"

"Why wouldn't I?" answered Mona as she flipped through dozens of pages she had printed out, detailing various information about the Gotham Branch.

"He pulls us both for the ride, and doesn't bother explaining the whole thing till we've both been pegged as his accomplices, which is not so bad on its own. But then he tells us to stick around here while he goes and do his own thing, then comes back and orders us around telling us what to do and how to do it. And just last night, he tells us to liberate a slave ship without telling us its a slave ship, and has the balls to say it was done out of the goodness of his heart."

"Your point?"  
"I smell a rat." said Priest as he stepped away from the window and put on his jacket.

"Where are you going?"

Priest didn't say a word as he headed to the door.

"Bastard."

* * *

_Manhattan, New York_

James Bond looked at his date's neck line as she read the menu, marveling at how her chest did not move at all, which wasn't really a marvel since she didn't need to breathe. A waiter stood waiting near the table in one of New York's most posh restaurants; Corleon's.

"I'll have the veal," she said as she looked up at him, and smiled charmingly, "Very rare."

"I'll have it as well, Medium rare."

The waiter smiled pompously and collected the menus before heading to the kitchen.

"I can't believe I'm here," said the Blond woman, "This place is really hard to get into. Are you a regular here, Mister Bond?"  
"I'm a friend of the proprietor; I had been a regular since it was opened. And please, Miss Kendell, It's simply James when we're not at work."

Miss Kendell smiled and said, "Only if you call me Harmony, and you can call me that anytime."

"Of course I will." said Bond, "So, how do you feel about moving to London?"

"I'm really excited, New York is great and all but... I don't know, I feel so out of place."

"I take it you're not a native New Yorker?"  
"No. I'm from a little town in California called Sunnydale, I then moved to Los Angeles where I worked for a law firm called Wolfram & Hart."  
"Oh yes, we've had dealings with them in the past. Have you ever been to London before?"

"No, although," said Harmony then paused, "Well, there was this guy I used to date, he was from London and said he'd take me there. We broke up, we didn't really work together and he was obsessed with this other girl."

Harmony realized what she was doing and stopped and tried to change the subject, "But enough about that. So, _James_, tell me a little bit more about yourself."

* * *

That's it for this week folks. Lava, I hope you liked St. Jimmy in here.

Im renewing my request for character suggestions, this time around I need Koreans, Venezuellans, Arabs and Germans.


	11. A Dull Evening

**Now**  
_Gotham City, Maryland_

Priest walked up the steps leading to the Gotham Public Library, he pushed the revolving doors and made his way in, earning the security guards' attention who sat at a table in the corner of the ample library playing a card game, he paid them no attention and walked directly to the reception desk where a bespectacled old librarian sat reading a woman's magazine.

"Excuse me, ma'am," said Priest as he scratched his itchy finger stumps that had not grown back fully yet through the gauze, the librarian looked at him with annoyance and a whiff of disgust, "where the computers at?"

The librarian nodded her head to he left once and went back to reading her magazine. Priest felt slightly annoyed at the lack of cooperation but went in that direction anyway.

Priest sat on a wobbly wooden chair before a computer and reached for the mouse, clicked on an icon that launched an Internet search engine. Next the typed into the textbox: captain nemo.

Seven seconds later, the search engine informed him that the only result found was a stake-house in West Virginia with that name. Priest types for a second time, entering the keywords nemo, indian and submarine. And still he wasn't able to find anything.

"Can I help?"  
"I don't think so," said Priest without looking back, he had already had whiff of the fragrant scent before the young woman spoke, he turned in seat to look at her, she was about twenty years old, red headed, slim and beautiful, she sported jeans, a green sweater and rimless glasses, "I guess it can't hurt if you tried, though."

Priest got off to allow her to take his position.

"What are you looking for?" she asked.

"Whatever I can get about a man named Nemo."  
"Nemo? Isn't that Latin for 'No-One'?"  
"I wouldn't know, you speak Latin?"  
"I've picked up a little in college."  
"Ah. So you don't work her full time."  
"No, I don't. What is he, a philosopher?"  
"Engineer, actually. Bit of an Inventor too, all around renaissance man."

The young woman entered a search from a different engine, and again no result was found.

"There is no result." she said, "I'll try our library system, if you don't mind getting something on paper."

"I don't think that'll work." said Priest, but the red-head had already entered a search, "But knock yourself out."

Five seconds later, a single result had emerged.

"Here we are, there's a book by a French Nineteenth century marine biologist, referring to a Captain Nemo. Would that be it?"

The result was most surprising to Priest who was expecting something more contemporary, "Maybe. Where's this book?" he said.

"I'll have to accompany you; night library rules. Follow me."

She stood up and walked towards the stairs, and Priest followed, "What is your interest in this, Mister...?"

"Priest, Judas Priest."

The Vampire instantly regretted saying it, not simply for the sake of anonymity, but because it usually invited a lot of curious and unwanted questions.

She turned back and smiled an amused smile, asking, "Judas? Your parents name you Judas?"

"Yeah, well," said Priest, trying to think of a plausible reason why someone would name anyone such a name, "My parents wanted to spite my grandparents, who were big Christians, you see."  
"Okay." she said with a slight chuckle.

"Don't knock it. What did your parents name you anyway?"  
"Barbara Gordon."  
"...Okay, that's not so bad."

They had made their way to the next floor and started making their way through rows and rows of shelves filled with books when she said, "You didn't answer my question, what is your interest in this?"

"I'm a writer," said Priest, mentioning the first thing that came to mind, "I'm doing a historical fiction novel. I came upon that name and thought it'd make a good character, but didn't have much information about him."

"Did you write anything I might have read?"  
"Eh, I've mostly written short stories, I get published in a couple of literary magazines every now and then. This'll be my first full length novel."

Priest then stopped so he wouldn't make a revealing mistake, they turned left and then she stopped in the middle of a row and reached for a thick dusty volume, pulled it out and handed it to Priest.

"Do you want to check it out?" asked Barbara.  
"I probably need a library card for that, right?"

* * *

Josephine untied her auburn hair out of its bun, letting it flow down like a waterfall as she entered her apartment, then kicked off her high heeled shoes and walked barefoot on the thick Persian carpet, heading towards the center of her living room. She pressed a button on the remote control and her hi-fi system was switched on, the CD inside started playing Mozart's Eine Kleine..., she opened a cupboard revealing a wine rack holding no less than eighty bottles of finely aged spirits. She picked up a bottle of fifty year old Merlot and uncorked it, then poured it into a pair of glasses.

A woman of her late twenties walked through the front door and locked it behind her, she was of small build but with an athletic body, her hair was raven black and silky, her skin was very fair, her eyes were blue and cold, her features while attractive, displayed a certain cruelty and aggression.

"Hello, Mandy."

"Hello. I got an e-mail from New York, Bond is done with his tour and will be heading back to London."

"That's where he belongs," said Josephine with mild contempt as she handed one of the glasses to Mandy Hughes, her assistant, "Anything else?"

"He just happened to pickup a new assistant from the New York Branch." said Mandy with a smile.

"That Bond," said Josephine with a chuckle then took a sip, "Its the protocol at work once again. Let me guess, a young tart, probably a Blond?"

"You got it, and guess what, she's a vampire."

"Really?" asked Josephine with a smug grin, "Tht's... That's pathetic."

"It's Friday night. Do you want to get some dinner?" asked Mandy before taking a sip of her drink.

Josephine finished off her own glass and walked towards her assistant, towering before her she leaned down as her hands found their way to Mandy's hips, Mandy allowed her to pull her in and succumbed as she was ravenously kissed on the mouth.

The two women parted and opened their eyes, "How about we just go straight to bed?"

* * *

Priest sat on the book of the monorail train, with his back to the window and his feet up on the seat. The cart was empty except for him and a sleeping middle-aged man in the front.

Priest flipped through fifteen pages that Barbara had photo-copied for him one hour ago in the library, he had chatted with her for twenty minutes after that and politely declined her offer to accompany her to a party.

The pages were part of the accounts of a French Professor of marine biology named Pierre Aronnax, of his time spent on a submarine referred to as the Nautilus which was responsible for a number of ship wrecks that were attributed to some sort of sea-beast, or a gigantic narwhal as some speculated. Aronnax described being possibly Arab, Spaniard or Indian, who had rejected the ways and troubles of the surface world and traveled the seven seas exploring the waters and seeing what no man has seen before him, occasionally aiding the oppressed and attacking warships. Apparently, the Captain was last seen piloting the Nautilus into the Moskstraumen whirlpool off the coast of Norway, where he is presumed to have died, in the year 1868.

Priest paused to consider, an Indian named Nemo with a submarine, it could have been two different individuals, perhaps the Nemo he knew had read about this past Nemo and was so impressed with such a truly extraordinary gentleman that he followed in his footsteps, created his own submarine and adopted the title of Captain Nemo.

But then there was the one-page illustration, drawn by Aronnax's friend and assistant Counseil, an amateur yet skilled artist, it depicted a man identical to the man Priest knew to a startling degree, the only difference was a light beard that could have certainly been shaved in the years since that illustration was drawn.

Again, it could have been a coincidence, perhaps it was a contributing factor to the man's choice to become Nemo, if that was the case, which was most likely.

The train slowed down, causing Priest to sit upright and insert the papers back into the folder, before looking out to see the train coming to a halt inside Wayne Station; the train station situated within Wayne Tower. Priest got up and walked out the train door and onto the platform as a couple of passengers got on, on his way to the stairs that would lead him to the streets, he dropped the entire file into a waste bin and walked down the stairs.

But he couldn't convince himself, as he knew better than most how the stranger scenario happened to be the true one most of the time. He found himself hesitantly believing that both men were one and the same.

Of course, he couldn't fathom how could a man survive for nearly a century and a half to the present day without aging much, for he knew Nemo was not a vampire and simply an enigmatic human being. Indeed, Priest's trip to the library had filled him with more questions that it answered.

He was sure of one thing though; Nemo was not a man he'd turn his back to anytime soon.

* * *

A little bit slow and uneventful, I'l admit. But it sets the stage for events to come. R&R.

Next Week: How Doctor Jekyll stopped the Alien Invasion and we discover where Nemo has ben off to.


	12. Live from Hyde Park

**January, 1901**

"If only we could delay them," said Campion Bond, "Just long enough till the weapon is delivered."

A noticeable metallic click was heard, and the group's focus turned to Jekyll, who had shut his watch and put it into his breast pocket, "I'll do it." he quietly said.

"What?" asked Sawyer.

Doctor Jekyll took off his dinner Jacket as he said, "I'll do it. I'll take my formula, Hyde will buy you the time you need."

Jekyll's jacket dropped onto the pavement, as did Nemo's jaw.

"Come on, Hank!" exclaimed Sawyer, "You can't be serious!"  
"Why not?" asked Jekyll as he took a small vile containing a greenish-transparent liquid out of his pocket.

"Henry," said Mina as she approached her husband, "Anything that gets within firing range of them will be incinerated! This is Suicide! This is Madness!!"

"Suicide? Madness?? I suppose. Still, there are worse things in life." said Jekyll tearfully, "Imagine if Skinner really did betray us to the Martians, wouldn't that be just awful?"

All but Nemo were confused of what Jekyll said, seeing no relevance to the situation at all.

"Look," said Bond, "I'm sorry to be the one to speak this. But what alternatives do we have? If they cross we'll all be dead."

"Is it all of us you're concerned with, Bond, or is it just you?" asked Nemo angrily.

"Look, he can make it. We just need a few minutes till the Weapon is delivered."

"Henry, please don't do it. I.. I need you. You don't have to do this." said Mina with a trembling voice.

Jekyll hung his head and closed his eyes tight to hold in his tears, "No, you don't."

"How can you say that? I love you, you're my husband!"

"I love you, Mina. I want you remember that." said Jekyll as he turned towards her, their faces a few inches apart, "You were my one, my last; my everything."

Jekyll took hold of his wife and pulled her in for a lengthy kiss, and as the basked in the sweetness of their embrace the universe melted around them, the sound of the tri-pods as they started marching across the bridge being reduced to a mere faint noise in the backdrop.

Jekyll pulled away, and in one determined motion, uncorked his vile and gulped it at once.

"Fare well, Mina." he said as he walked backwards, away from her, "Farewell, you filthy, treacherous harlot."

Mina's face froze in a pale image of utter astonishment, even her tears seemed to freeze on her cheeks.

Jekyll turned on his heels, and shot Sawyer a look, a bone chilling, spine tingling look of pure hate and disgust. It was a look that lasted less than two seconds, but it was one that Sawyer would remember always.

"I'll pray for you, old friend." said Nemo as he was overcome with emotion.

Doctor Jekyll smiled at the Indian ever so faintly, then started humming a cheerful tune as he stepped onto the stones of London Bridge, starting a direct march to the oncoming Tri-pods. The remaining four looked at the lanky figure as it transformed into a hulking Apish brute of a man.

"Mina..." said Sawyer as he touched Mina on the shoulder.  
"It's... It's all right, Tom."

Nemo didn't care about those two as he watched Hyde strolling across the bridge, now going from humming to singing an old pub drinking song.

The first of the tri-pods fired, but Hyde managed to duck out of the heat-canon's range in the last second, then charged like a stampeding herd of oxes at the first of the tri-pods' front leg, colliding with it violently and noticeably bending it, yet it remained standing. The tri-pod aimed it's canon at Hyde, but didn't fire, obviously unable to do so without blowing its own leg off.

Hyde wrestled with the leg for the better part of a minute while the teeth of the League clenched, and they exhaled as they saw the metallic stilt snap, causing the tri-pods to come tumbling down.

Hyde then waltzed towards the wreckage as the two other tri-pods stopped in their tracks up ahead, and made his way to the upside down head, ripped open the hatch. They could see him reaching in, and struggling with something, and then they saw torrents of liquid showering upward and covering Hyde in alien blood, as he raised half an alien's carcass for them to see.

And then the two other tri-pods charged, aiming their heat-canons at Hyde, and fired simultaneously, turning the fallen tri-pods and the man standing upon it into a hellish inferno.

"Henry..." gasped Mina.

Hyde was dead, and so was Jekyll. At last, the long suffering pair had met their end, and as they lived for nearly twenty years, they had died as one.

Nemo heard sounds coming from down river, like firing guns.

"That would be the artillery position in Westminister. They're delivering the weapon to south London." said Bond with relief.

"In an artillery shell?" asked Sawyer, "You're delivering a hybrid animal an artillery shell?"

"Hybrid?" asked Nemo.  
"The place we visited," explained Mina, shook up from seeing her husband blown up, "It had animal Hybrids; man-like talking beasts."

"It's a hybrid," explained Bond with renewed confidence, taking a drag from his Cuban cigar, "But not an animal. Bacterium, actually. Anthrax and Streptococcus."

"What?" cried Sawyer, "There must still be people in south London!"  
"The official story will be that Humans were killed by aliens, while the aliens themselves died from influenza which was most fatal to their physiology."

"What?" asked Nemo angrily, "A hybrid disease? Are you telling me that England has biological weaponry, and that you've made me party to their use?"

Bond was about to explain something, when Nemo shouted,

"You pack of treacherous dogs, all of you! I resign from this league of yours!"

"As you wish, Captain." said Bond apathetically as he looked across the bridge, "England is most grateful for your services, good luck."

Nemo turned away from the other three and started walking to the makeshift bridge that led from the Nautilus to the west bank of the river.

"Nemo." called Sawyer as he came after him, "We didn't know-"  
"I don't care." barked Nemo sharply, "You've killed Jekyll and maybe Skinner, and that fat son of a whore has killed the south of London. As soon as the weed is clear, I will leave the country. Never seek me again."

"Nemo, come…"  
"Sawyer, if I ever see you again, I will kill you."

Nemo sensed Sawyer stopping, and he went on, crossing the iron board to the Nautilus, and as he stood upon the conning tower, about to disappear into his submarine, he looked at London for the last time, and saw those giant milking stools collapse and fall like house of cards.

Like houses of cards and his faith in mankind.

* * *

**Now**  
_Hyde Park, London_

Nemo sat on a bench near Serpentine Lake, tossing seeds to be pecked at by gray pigeons surrounding him. He tossed a handful and looked around to see if anybody had arrived, but the nearest person to him was a teenaged boy and girl having a picnic eighty feet away from him.

The park used to be called Serpentine Park until the fall of 1901 when it was named after Edward Hyde, the national hero who perished so that England may survive.

Nemo couldn't help smiling. Edward Hyde was national hero! The man who murdered and raped more men and women than anyone seemed to know, who clubbed a prominent member of parliament to death and was reported to have once defecated at the steps of Westminster Abby, that man had one of London's biggest parks named after him and a statue erected in his honor.

Nemo turned in his place to take a look at said statue, it resembled Hyde, but was not him; his apish physique was made to look more human, though his bestial face remained very similar.

Nemo turned back to find a white haired and bearded man of seventy sitting next to him, he wore a trench-coat and a narrow brimmed hat.

"Nemo, how are you?" said the man as he tossed a handful of seeds.  
"Mason," said Nemo with a smile, "Your stealth is on top form as always."  
"When you're my age, these little tricks are all that counts."

Mason took a flask out of his coat pocket and offered it to Nemo who waved it off, Mason uncorked it and took a sip of whatever spirit was inside.

"The New York cell has contacted me," said Mason, "Phase one of Operation Succubus is a success."  
"That's great news."

"How about the Korean Professor?"  
"She's been captured, though the Gotham Cell don't know it. I told them to capture the entire ship."  
"And they did?"  
"Yes. I took all the women and delivered them to the care of a friend of mine in North Carolina."  
"How about the Professor?"  
"I questioned her in regards to Phoenix."  
"What did you find out?"

Nemo didn't answer for a moment, he threw a handful of seeds, but the pigeons flew away without touching them.

"The professor is a world renowned authority on political science. Before the U.S. invaded Iraq, she prophesized its aftermath. Nobody took her conjectures into consideration, and it all came true.

"The League hired her to estimate the geo-political consequences of a war in East Asia."

Nemo handed Mason a dossier and said, "This is what she knows. There were other experts like her, each working on something else. Communications between each other were strictly forbidden."

"Good god." said Mason as he flipped through the dossier, "Is a war about to break out in Asia? And the League is aiming to stop it for the sake of its interests?"

"It wouldn't be the first time. She said something else, that she worked on her reports in Berlin, and had stumbled upon an encrypted disk that she kept to use as future leverage."

"Does she still have it?"  
"It's still in Berlin."  
"We'll have to send word to Barbossa to inform his Berlin Cell to retrieve it."  
"Yes, that'll do."

"Well, then, that's about it." said Mason as he got up, "How about one for the road, Would you like to join me for a pint of bitter at the Winchester Tavern?"

"I'd love a pint."

* * *

The power of "Bob" compels you to review.


	13. Lucy in the Sky and Lady Vengeance

**Now **

_Gotham City, Maryland_

Detective Bullock walked into Lieutenant Gordon's office and handed him a file.

"What's this?" asked Gordon as he looked away from the computer screen and opened the file to have a look.

"That's the male assailant from the Gloomy Gus illegal immigrant disappearance case."

Gordon looked at a mug shot of a man of his mid to late thirties as Bullock continued, "His name is Judas Priest, he's hired muscle. He's wanted for suspicion on two dozen crimes; armed robbery; driving under the influence, drug trafficking, auto-theft, public indecency, destruction of public property and killing two FBI Agents in Dallas back in 2000."

"Jesus Christ. How about his partner?" asked Gordon.  
"Nothing', he worked alone most of the time and when he didn't, his partners were men."

"Known emplyrers"  
"Try everyone. The Corlenoes and the Punchinelos in New York, the Cusacks in Philadelphia, the Abruzzis in Chicago, as well as half a dozen south-American drug lords"  
"Whoever he's working for, it can't be good. Run an A.P.B. on him, we better catch him quick."

* * *

Lucy soared through an endless marmalade sky, tiny diamonds collided with the contours of her body and drifted away into space, her eyes drifted downward to look upon the distant landscape. She willed herself to descended, coming closer and closer to the ruined city.

Her flight decreased in speed as she grew closer to the earth, eventually she hovered ten feet above the ground and her body straightened up, and she glided down feet first to pick up an aged piece of paper that lay on the bottom steps of a great building, which was some kind of a blend between a mosque, a cathedral and a medieval fort. The piece of paper was a newspaper, it depicted the image of a crowded hospital ward overflowing with ill and tortured souls, withering in pain, and the headline above it read a single word 'Plague'.

She heard the sound of waves, and looked up to see the gates of the building rocking as something pressured from within.

Lucy instantly willed herself to ascend upward before the gates buckled and the rivers of blood could sweep her away. She continued to soar through the air, heading towards the great spiral in the sky, it looked like a whirlpool, only upside-down and amidst the clouds.

As she was nearing the boundaries of the whirlpool, she looked back to look upon the city below, it had changed, it was a vast flat white coast, between a roaring ocean of blood and mountain chains of brimstone, in the middle of the dreadful beach was a dragon and a massive great scorpion covered in blood, and they both were locked in fierce and mortal battle. Before she could see any more, she was sucked upward into the whirlpool, the was canonballed through the fabric of time and space, of reality and dream, of the material and immaterial, through the fabric of the cosmos, and hurled back into the physical plane.

_**------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**_

_Berlin, Germany_

Lucy Wagner got up from the floor, and with two shaky fingers picked a sweaty lock of golden hair and set it place behind her ear, then walked to the fridge and opened it, eagerly pulling out an opened carton of chocolate milk, she shut the fridge and sat on the kitchen floor with her back to the cold and loudly humming fridge. Then raised the carton upward and opened her mouth allowing the rich, cold and tasty beverage to flow into her mouth and down her throat.

These events always woke up a great thirst in her.

The carton was soon empty, she let it drop next to her, and wiped her mouth with the tip of her sleeve. She sat in her position for a minute breathing heavily, her sweat cooled and she soon started breathing normally.

Lucy was a woman of her late twenties, tall and typically Aryan looking, she wore square and black-rimmed glasses and a fitting cream colored shirt and a black skirt that reached to her mid-shin.

She got up and looked around the apartment, to see if any other members of her cell were there, and saw that there wasn't.

Well, she wasn't truly alone; there was the man in the storage room.

She pushed the door of the storage room open to see that he was there, as always, sitting at the table, looking forward into the dark space, his entire body was covered in black.

How she was able to control such a creature, she could not fathom, but she was doing it anyway, his will was hers, he did as she pleased precisely and with no objection nor delay.

* * *

_Seoul, Korea_

Lee Gaum-Ja walked down the street, pulling her knee length black leather coat tightly around her to fend off the cold weather. She looked up as she arrived at her building, and saw that the apartment's lights were on, the three men must still be up, drinking, smoking and playing cards like they always did.

Kind Hearted Gaum-Ja they called her, due to her angelic beauty and her good deeds she performed for fellow inmates before she was released from prison after serving a fifteen year term.

The Park Boys, the three men who formed the cell along with her were three brothers, publicly they were private detectives, but secretly they were thieves who have struck at those who were powerful, robbed the public and were untouchable by the law. They would still from the rich and corrupt and gave their plunder (most of it anyway) to the poor and needy.

Being the only woman in the cell, as well as being the convicted killer of a five year old boy, thought she didn't actually do it, they did not go along. The boys thought her to be a nuisance and would much rather be rid of her if they could.

She could handle them, though. Despite having not killed that five year old boy, she was certainly a stone cold killer, she had to learn to be one to survive, to protect the ones she loved, to avenge the little five year old boy when she got out.

She walked up the stairs, clutching the grocery bag in hand. On the fourth floor she arrived at her door, took out her keys and unlocked it, then walked in, expecting to hear one of the brothers say 'The Bitch is Home', not bothering to conceal his disdain.

First thing she saw when she got in was the poker table, the cards were scattered all over it, the ashtray overflowed with still smoking cigarettes stubs, a broken bottle of beer was on the floor, amid a puddle of liquid.

The grocery dropped to the floor, and Gaum-Ja spun around to run, only to see the butt of a gun slamming into his face.

Gaum-Ja fell to the floor, bleeding from the forhead, trying to fathom what had happened. Someone grabbed hold of the back of her collar and pulled her to the center of the apartment before letting go.

She looked up to see herself surrounded by four hard looking men, dressed in dark clothes, each holding a suppressed pistol. Shifting her view to the couch, she saw the Park Brothers, dead, each having several bullet holes in their torsos and heads.

One of the four men approached her, and pressed his pistol to her forehead as he crouched down, then with one hand reached into her coat, feeling her body for weapons. His hand came out holding a black dual-barreled pistol, its handle decorated with ornate designs.

"You must be the last one," said the man as he stepped back, and placed her weapon on the table, "Or are there anyone else?"

"No." she said as she realized who these four men were, they were the operatives of Mr. Paik; leader of the Korean Branch of the League.

"Where are your leaders?"

Gaum-Ja kept silent, and for that she was treated with a shot from the silenced pistol that hit the wall one inch above her head.

"We know you work for the opposition, Captain Nemo is your handler. Tell me where he is, and maybe you'll die quick."

Gaum-Ja hesitated, weighing her options and chance of survival, but eventually decided, "I don't know where he is... He communicates with me through a special device"  
"Where is this device?"

"It's in that safe." said Gaum-Ja as she nodded at a metal safe in the corner.

"Where's the key"  
"It's in my back pocket"  
"No sudden movements." said the operative as he approached her again, aiming the gun at her chest and reaching with the other hand behind her.

The operative fished out the key, then tossed it to one of his associates, who went to open the safe while another looked over him.

"It's in here," said the agent, "It's a laptop computer. It looks high tech, might be linked directly to satellite."

While the operative was busy frisking Gaum-Ja for a second time, she had managed to discretely reach for her leather boot, and pulled out a knife that she concealed in her hand.

"Good, we'll use it to track the Indian down."

Gaum-Ja tightly closed her eyes, much to the operative's surprise.

What Gaum-Ja had failed to mention was a timed mechanism within the safe that one of the more technology savvy Park Brothers had devised; whenever the safe was open a timer would start counting down from ten, and would pause and reset to ten when it was closed, however if it reached zero before the safe was closed, everyone facing the safe would find themselves having a bad day.

A flashbang was triggered, the ceiling lamps emitted brilliant lights that filled the room through the room, blinding the two agents watching it. Gaum-Ja opened her eyes and quickly raised the knife upward and stuck it into the operative's neck, he instinctively fired, but Gaum-Ja had already moved out of the way, and the bullet simply scratched the side of her arm. She seized his pistol and pressed it into the bottom of his jaw, squeezing the trigger twice and pulling the knife out.

She pushed the operative away and hurled the knife at the Agent standing by the door, plunging into his arm, the agent was unable to aim properly and his bullets plunged into the wall half a foot away from Gaum-Ja. Feeling the small window of opportunity closing fast, she sprung forward, sliding on the floor she aimed the gun at him and pulled the trigger repeatedly, once the gun clicked empty the agent staggered back, bleeding from every limb, with his back to the door his legs buckled, and he slid to the floor, dead.

There the two other Agents by the safe, who though temporarily blind, could sense her presence through hearing her movements. They raised their pistols and fired, their bullets coming too close for comfort to her body.

She kicked the table, sending her dual-barreled gun flying into the air, as it came down it fell into her hand, and pressing her index finger onto the trigger, aimed the gun as she lay on her back on the floor with her head towards the two agents, she hit the first agent in the chest and he was done, then aimed at the second who still kneeled by the safe and pulled the trigger, she hit him in the head and the agent's brain and blood were sent spraying through the back of his head.

Gaum-Ja lay on the floor for a few seconds, exhaling in relief, then sat up and reached into her pockets to produce a clip of bullets that she loaded into her gun.

She crawled to the safe and reached above the corpse of the dead agent to retrieve the laptop, she wiped the blood and brains off it and then opened it, and pressed the enter button repeatedly till Pepper appeared on the screen.

"Where's Nemo?" she asked in an accented English.  
"The Captain is Not here. How may I aid you?" asked Pepper.  
"The League... They found me"  
"Are you alright? Is the cell intact"  
"There is no cell"  
"What do you mean"  
"Gone. All of them, dead"  
"Christ... How"  
"I don't know. I come home, there was a hit team. I killed them all"  
"So you're not in immediate danger"  
"No."

"Great. I want you to get as far from where you are as possible. We'll be heading to Korea to extract you at once. But first, I want you to do something. Take a knife and remove the space bar button on your keyboard."

Gaum-Ja set the laptop on the chest of the dead agent and reached for her boot to produce a second knife which she used to remove the button.

"Okay."

"Keep it on you at all time, it's a tracking device we'll use to find you when we come. Now, I want you to press the following buttons, it will start a self destruct mechanism: F7 - F - F - O - Shift - C - K - F - U - Enter - Delete."

Gaum-Ja pressed the buttons as she told her, and a countdown appeared at the bottom of the screen, counting down from three minutes.

"Now, get a gun and put as much distance as you can between yourself and the neighborhood, we're coming to rescue you, stay low."

* * *

The conversation is supposed to be in Korean.


	14. Gotham Nights

**Now**  
_Gotham City, Maryland_

Priest walked into a butcher's shop, a fat man in the apron stood behind the counter, looking straight at a mounted TV on the wall, watching a football match between the San Francisco Forty-Niners and the Gotham Knights.

"Hey buddy, I'd like some cow's blood if you got any." said Priest, the proprietor paid him no heed, and kept watching the screen, so Priest repeated, "I said-"

"Hold on a minute," said the butcher with a distinct Italian-American accent, "This is the game of the year, we win this game and we're off to the Superbowl."

Priest rolled his eyes and sighed in discomfort, but obliged to the man's request as the game drew fast into it's conclusion with the Niners scoring a touch down seconds before the clock ran out."

"Jesus Christ! Dammit!" cursed the butcher, "We lost to San Francisco?!"

"Looks like it." said Priest with glee, as he didn't appreciate having to wait.

The butcher turned to him, and looked upon him with a frown for a second, before his expression changed, as if he recognized him.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" asked Priest as he tilted his head to one side.

"Nothing, pal. What was it that you wanted?" said the butcher, politely all of a sudden.

Priest laid a plastic container on the counter and said, "Cow blood, half a gallon ought to do it."

"Sure thing, you just wait right here." said the butcher as walked back with the container then turned around to head to the back room. He returned a minute later with the container filled with the red liquid, he stuffed it into two paper bags and handed it to him.

"That'll be Nineteen-Fifty, Sir."

Priest took the bag and placed a twenty dollar bill on the counter.

"Keep the change."

Priest walked out the door and onto the streets, it was nine p.m., Gotham was once again wearing its black dress. Priest crossed the street, then headed north, towards his and Mona's building, unknowing that out the back of the butcher's shop three heavy men scurried out and into a car.

"Come on," said one of them as he sat in the passenger's seat and took out a gun out of the glove compartment and loaded it, "Let's get going."

The driver started the engine and pulled out of his parking space, while the passenger went on, "The Boss wants this Priest bastard alive."

* * *

_Elsewhere in Gotham_

Mona looked out the car's window at the building across the street before shutting the engine, she reached for the glove compartment and got her gun, she made sure it was loaded and screwed a silencer on, before placing the weapon in her shoulder holster.  
She stepped out of the car and buttoned her jacket, then crossed the street heading towards Castling Insurance's building.

She had spent the last two days studying what the previous Cells finding were, the intelligence provided by Nemo, she also spoke with an Intelligence Specialist working with Nemo over the satellite connection; a blind American named Sands. She had come to several findings in regards to the League's source of funds.

Around forty-five percent came through various corporations that the League was invested in, such as arms manufacturers, oil drilling, information technology and pharmaceuticals among others. Thirty percent was gained through selling valuable intelligence to Intelligence Agencies and carrying out Assassinations on their behalf. The remaining came from the league's drug trafficking operations, shipping Afghan Opium and Burmese Heroin to Western Markets.

The dubious fifty-five percent had to be laundered to keep from attracting attention, and to so, they needed the proper channels.

She had come to the conclusion that the League had an Agent working for the Castling Bank; a senior Executive by the name of Alan Gowen, the possibly of him ever having contact with Josephine was almost certain.

* * *

**Two hours Later**

The guard turned on his radio and said, "Nothing here, Carl, I'm coming down."

The guard then entered the elevator and pressed the ground floor button and turned his flash-light off.

Mona got from underneath Gowen's desk, and took a look through the glass windows of his office to make sure the guard was really gone.

Seeing that the coast was clear, she turned on a small flashlight, stuck it between her teeth and aimed it on the file cabinet as she picked the lock. Once the cabinet open, she flipped through dozens of files, eventually coming across one titled 'Novick'.

Mona took out the Novick file and sat on the ground as she opened it, there were some financial reports as well as a CD in a jewel case. Mona opened the case and took out the CD and inserted it into a device she got out of a pocket in her cargo pants, then pressed a button than read 'scan'.

Next, she took the reports out one by one and snapped pictures of each with a camera. Once she was done, she returned the CD and report into the file and reinserted it into the cabinet just as the next guard was about to make his rounds. She stealthily collected her equipment and climbed out the window, and up the side of the building using a rope attached to a grapple clinging to the side of the roof. From there, she crossed the twenty foot gap between the Castling Bank and the Castling Insurance Company, using another rope she had tossed over from earlier tonight from the roof of the Insurance company.

* * *

**One Hundred and Five minutes earlier**

"Ziggy Stardust!"

Priest walked towards the ticket scalper, a nineteen year old man in street clothes, as he held the paper bag in his hands, heading home. The scalper went on, advertising his merchandise, "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, in town for One Night, this Friday Night. Hey, my man! Want some tickets?"

"How much?"  
"One Hundred, right upfront, you'll smell the Martian's sweat."  
"No thanks." said Priest as he walked away from the scalper who had attracted the attention of a group of kids interested in attending the concert.

Priest something was happening, he looked behind his left to see a car screeching to a halt and a man sticking his torso out of the window, taking aim at him with a gun.

Priest hurled the bag at the man who pulled the trigger a split second earlier, the plastic jug exploded on the man's face, dousing the shooter in cow's blood.

"Jesus Christ!!!"

Surrounding onlookers sighed in shock and surprise. Priest had felt a bee sting in his chest, as well as a sudden dizziness, he looked down to see a dart sticking out of his chest.

"...The Hell?!"

He reached to tear it out, and just as he was about to do so, a second dart struck him in the back of the hand he was about to pull the dart out with. A man stepped out of the back, and another out of the driver's seat. A third dart hit him in the stomach, followed by one in the neck and a few others in his limbs.

"Motherf..."

Priest fell to the ground, flat on his face; the three men hurried to him and lifted him up, then tossed him into the back of their car, amidst the crowd's terrified stares.

A minute, the surrounding crowd forgot all about the incident.  
It was just another night in the dirty old town they called Gotham.


	15. Priest's Ultimatum

**1943**  
_Brooklyn, New York_

"My head..." said Priest with a groan as he raised his hand to inspect the bleeding wound in the back of head, but couldn't as a chain restricted his movement, "Who the hell are you people?"

Priest raised his head to look at his captures, his vision was blurry, but it soon cleared up and he was able to see the two men standing by the door of the room, holding what appeared to be crossbows, he could smell two other men standing directly behind him as well.

"You're up, that's good." said one of the men behind him, "I was beginning to think you were never going to wake up."

The man stepped into Priest's range of view, he was in his early fifties and wore a black suit with a dark brown trench coat and a black hat. Something about him was strongly familiar to Priest.

"You have no idea what you've just got yourself into," said Priest as he tried to rid himself of his shackles, "You've just made the biggest mistake of your life."

"I did?" asked the man in black, "You are Judas Priest, correct? Born to the clan Priest, vampire lords of the Scottish Highlands. Arrived in the country in April of Nineteen-Twelve, having survived drowning with the Titanic. A rescue boat found you floating, conscious and perfectly healthy. You spoke with a British accent those days, remember that, Jude?"

Priest looked at the man, his features ringing a church bell within his memory, and finally he was able to recognize him, "You were on Ellis Island. You offered me a blanket."

The man smiled grimly and said, "Glad you remembered."

"What the hell do you want from me?"

The man sat on a chair opposite to Priest, and crossing his legs he talked, "My name is George Franklin Nash, as you might have guessed; I no longer work immigration on Ellis Island. I now work for a new Agency; The Demon's Research Initiative."

"Good for you." said Priest dryly, "Now let me go and maybe I'll let you live."

Nash nodded for the Agent standing behind Priest, and the Agent cracked Priest in the head with a baseball bat.

Priest howled in pain, while Nash continued, "You're not in a position to make threats, Priest. Now you shut up and listen or the next thing will be a wooden arrow in your chest."

"That won't kill me." said Priest as he winced.  
"No? Fine then, I'll have you beheaded. The truth is, you've been on our radar for some time, we've been watching. We've been watching other vampires as well, but you're a peculiar case. And all the time you've been monitored, we've recorded a significantly low number of attacks on human, considering you're a vampire, on more than half those occasions you were provoked. We have no knowledge of you ever attacking to feed. We understand that you only drink cow and snake Blood."

Nash stood and walked to look out the window with his beck directed at Priest.

"Now, I wonder why you don't do that, but the truth is it doesn't matter. The bottom line is that you're not an average vampires and you're not human either, you're a true extrovert. Let me ask you something, Priest, do you like it?"

"Like what?"  
"America," said Nash warmly, "How do you feel about it?"

"It suits me fine." said Priest after a beat.  
"Really? Well, I happen to love this country that 'suits you just fine', I'd lay down my life to defend it. The question is, what would you do to keep it like this?"

"Now what are you talking about?"  
"I'm sure you're aware of how well Hitler is doing at the moment. Our intelligence report indicate it's not entirely due to the Reich's arms manufacturing superiority."  
"What is it, then?" asked Priest.

Nash turned around silently and walked over to Priest and unlocked part of his shackles, so that he could have more mobility with his hands. Nash then opened a briefcase and took out a picture of some kind of spear-head, he handed it to Priest who looked at it blankly and said, "Pretty, what is it?"

"What you're holding is a picture of the _Lancia Longini_, also known as the Spear of Destiny. It used to be on display in the Museum of Vienna till Hitler's troops stole it in Thirty-Nine. Legend has it that after Christ had died on the cross, a roman soldier named Longinus stabbed the son of god in his side, to make sure he was dead. The spear is said to have gained great power, the blood of god on it grants invincibility to anyone who wield it."

"And you think that is why you can't beat the Kraut?" asked Priest as he let the photograph drop to he floor.

"It isn't hurting him, that we are sure of." answered Nash as he leaned to pick up the picture, "Now, the question that is sure to be running in your head is 'What does this have to do with me?'."

"You got that right."  
"Well, the Demon's Research Initiative feels that it has fallen upon you to earn all the freedom you seem to be basking in. You say that America suits you just fine? Well, in order for it to continue suiting you just fine, you're gonna have to work for us. We're going to have you airdropped above enemy territory and you're going to steal back the spear of destiny and bring it back to us."

"Why me?"  
"You've spent the Eighteen Seventies in Germany, you know the language. You're agile, resilient, strong and resourceful. Besides, the spear is said to negatively influence any living man who is exposed to it for a prolonged period. We figure you're gonna keep it all under control, being undead and all."

"Well what if I say no?"

Nash smiled faintly and stood, heading to leave the room, and said, "In three hours the sun will come up, and given the window's exposure and the position of your chair, I don't like your chances. Coincidently, three hours is all you have to make a decision. See you later, Judas."

* * *

**Now**  
_Gotham City, Maryland_

Priest woke up a few hours later, feeling like he had a hundred men bounding inside his head, at gunpoint he was led to a very well furnished office. At that point, his head still hurt like he couldn't believe, and had that not been the case, he would have killed everyone of his captors instantly and made his escape before he heard a word of what they had to say.

"Judas Priest..." said a man in an Italian American accent, "I am honored."

Priest looked up to see the man speaking to him, his migraine was subsiding, and he could make out a man of mid fifties, his black hair streaked with gray, wearing Armani's best. Sitting by the fireplace was a man well over seventy years old, holding a cane in his hands as he silently looked at Priest.

"What are you smiling for?" asked Preist as he squinted.

"Nothing, I just though you'd be taller. I've heard much about you over the years, hell, you're a legend. Allow me to introduce myself, My name is Salvatore Maroni."

Priest knew that name well, he had dealings with the man's criminal syndicate a few times over the years, he was one of the crime moguls of Gotham City, perhaps second only to Carmine 'The Roman' Falcone, and with the latter's imprisonment a few years back, he had went on to become Gotham's undisputed Crime Czar.

"I'm sure you know who I am, I'd be insulted if you're not. By now you may be wondering what is it that I want from you, correct? My contacts within the police department say that you are the prime suspect of intercepting an incoming freighter and stealing away the cargo."

"What's it to ya?"  
"Those women were mine. You cost me half a million dollars, Priest."

"Ah. Well, that's what happens when you dabble in slavery." said Priest as he stretched his legs and put his hands on his chair's arms.

"True, but that doesn't change the fact that you owe me five hundred thousand dollars."

"Do I look like I have five hundred grand?"

"Again, that doesn't change the fact that you are in my debt."  
"If it'll make you feel better, you can kill me." said Priest as he patted his pockets, looking for a pack of cigarettes.

"Actually, I thought I might put you to work."  
"I'm not really taking offers these days." said Priest as he gave up the search for smokes.

"You'll take this one."

Priest was a man who liked to be requested, and never ordered, but he was intrigued enough to listen to what the man had to say.

"Oh yeah? Let's hear it then."  
"If you already know who I am, you also know of my main opponent, Carmine 'The Roman' Falcone, he's currently doing time, a lot of time. He's still running the Roman Empire from behind bars, with a little help from his son Alberto. Their influence in Gotham has lessened, but they're still strong and are a force to be reckoned with in Baltimore."

"Right, you want me to kill the son?" asked Priest as he crossed his hands behind his head

"I have a daughter, Angela," said Maroni as he stood by the fire, staring at the burning embers, "She's in... she thinks she's in love with Alberto Falcone; he smooth talked her into moving in with him. I want my Angela back."

Priest snorted.

"Do you have any children, Mister Priest?" asked Maroni, paying no heed to Priest's lack of respect. Priest didn't answer right away, instead he frowned a bit, displaying an expression of discomfort as if he didn't like the way the conversation turned to.

"I had a son once, that was a long time ago."

"You understand then, the need to protect our young."

"Sure, that and you can't stand the idea of your enemies little boy having his way with your little girl."

Maroni turned around angrily to look at Priest, he was running out of patience, but desperately needed his cooperation. He fought the urge to lash out at Priest, and simply stared. Priest sensed that he ma have went too out of line and raised his hands apologetically.

"Hey, I'm just sayin'." said Priest and lowered his palms.  
"If you do me this favor, we'll be even."  
"Here's a question, does she want to come back?"  
"She thinks she's in love. I doubt her ability to make such a choice."

"Well, Alrighty then." said Priest as he got up and headed for the door, "I'll get around to it tomorrow night, now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to fuck off."

The three mobsters that had abducted him entered through the door through which he was about to leave, one of them had wet hair, from an impromptu shower he took to wash away the blood Priest hurled at him earlier. Priest stopped in his tracks.

"Until my daughter is back at my side," said Maroni as he sat opposite to the old man by the fireplace, "You are not to leave the sight of my men."

"Aww, balls!" said Priest as he hung his head

"I'm sorry for the inconvenience, Mister Priest. I do not trust you."

"Less go." said one of the mobsters, and Priest was flanked by two of the mobsters as the four left the room.

"You think he'll do it?" asked Maroni when the door was shut.

"Maybe, maybe not, but maybe." said the old consigliori in a knowing manner, before he shut his eyes, and appeared to be trying to remember something.

"Are you alright, Peter?" asked Maroni.

"Yeah.. It's just this guy," said Peter as he opened his eyes, "He reminds me of this Major I in met in Korea, back in Fifty-Two."

"What about him?"

"He looks just like Priest, sound like him too, come to think of it, his name might've been Priest. Member of a part of army intelligence, he was. He once broke orders, went two miles into enemy territory to rescue some nobody private, Lee was the private's name I think. He was a real head-braker, he looked like a regular kind of guy, but there was something real odd about him."

Peter looked up to see Maroni stifling a laugh. Peter chuckled and said, "At my age, od names and new faces get mingled, I guess. forget about it."


	16. The Baltimore Job

Dearest readers, It just occurs to me that I may have slown the pace of this story to an extreme degree, but bear with me, its about to pick up. And now, here is some pure Vampire vs. Mobsters violence, on the house.

* * *

**Now**  
_Baltimore, Maryland_

"We're here." said Harry, Boss Maroni's henchman who was doused with cow blood over twenty four hours ago as he shut the engine.

"Showtime, Priest." said Tommy as he cocked is gun and buried it into his jacket.

Priest squeezed is temples as he sat in the back seat next to Dick. He'd spent the previous night and the whole day with the three mobsters, preparing a plan to abduct Angela Maroni, which wasn't easy given their mistrust of him as well as their suspicion, partly due to him waking up following only two hours of unconsciousness after he was sedated with enough tranquilizers to make a horse sleep for a whole day.

"Right..." said Priest with a sigh, his latest migraine was fading. He opened the door and waited and stepped out of the car, saying, "Nine o'clock sharp, boys. We'll hit them hard, fast and quick."

_**---------------------------------------------------------------------**_

Priest splashed some cold water on his face and looked at his pale reflection in the mirror; his eyes were tainted with red, as happened often when he had gone too long without blood. If it wasn't for Tom, dick and Harry, he would have been well fed by now and his hands wouldn't be trembling, he would have been in Gotham, laying on a couch looking at Mona's ass without her noticing.

He shook his hands and slapped his cheeks to perk himself up before looking at his watch, it was 8:58, nearly time. He straightened his clothes and waited the rest room, walking into the main hall of Falcone Plaza.

The first floor of Falcone Plaza was among Baltimore's most prominent hotels, the ground floor was the site of the city most exclusive restaurants. Getting in wasn't easy, Priest had to break the host's thumb to get in, security were probably seeking him by this point, but it didn't matter as they would have other things on their plate in a minute.

Priest received several suspicious looks from restaurant patrons due to his scruffy and generally unkempt appearance, he ignored them all and walked to the bar, where a pair of daunting security men had spotted them and were headin is way.

Priest glanced at his watch to see that the time now was Nine p.m., and with a satisfied smile he stood before the two security guards.

"Don't make a scene, you're gonna have to come with us." said one of the security men.

Priest raised his fist, very obviously winding u for a punch and the lights went dead a split second before Priest's fist connected with the man's jaw and sent him flying back into the bar, Priest sweeped the other man's feet and kicked him in the face as he lay on the floor.

Priest squatted down to frisk the knocked out security guard, eventually finding a key card and walking away silently. The patron's were gasping and unanimously humming in shock, annoyance, slight fear and surprise at the sudden blackout, they were so shocked that they had completely missed the noises from the brief scuffle that had just taken place.

As the Plaza was bathed in darkness, Priest could see quit enough for him to make his way to the service stairs and make is way up, running faster than humanly possible.

Reaching the eleventh floor, he dispensed of four security men quickly before prying the elevator's doors open and stepping in, and looking at the luminous arms of his watch as it indicated 9:03.

Four minutes was what it usually took for the power to return, when it did, Priest entered the key-card into the designated slot and the doors slid shut.

The elevator ascended to the top floor, to Falcone's Penthouse.

_**---------------------------------------------------------------------**_

"So what's the deal with the Boss and the Maroni chick?" asked one of the five mafia soldiers around the poker table.

"What do you mean?"  
"I mean does he really love her or is he keeping her a hostage to keep Maroni from making any moves?"  
"Probably the second, the Boss is a wily one, takes after his dad."  
"I donno, I think he loves her too, don't you see how he is around her?"

A soldier chuckled, "I'd act whatever she wanted if she let me do to her whatever she lets the boss do. I saw the other day by the pool, and man, she has a rack that could tempt the pope."

The sixth guard at the table frowned in discomfort as the guards at the table erupted with laughter. He continued reading his book, a novel by Jack Kerouac titles 'The Crazy Wide Forever', after he put his feet up the table by the big red panic button.

Falcone's suit was separated from the rest of the Penthouse by a decorated mahogany door, outside the Apartment was a small lobby where the soldiers were gathered, opposite the apartment door was the elevator door. The soldier's job was to make sure no one got in that wasn't supposed to. And should someone like that ever came along, they would send him back down by force if necessary, and in the worst case scenario, one of the guards would hit the panic button which would sound an Alarm inside the Apartment, alerting Alberto Falcone to the presence of an intruder.

"Look, someone's coming up. Did the Boss order anything?"  
"He didn't say so."  
"Send 'em back down, then."

"Don't look at my hand." said a soldier as he stood up and placed his cards on the table, then headed to the elevator.

The elevator doors opened and the guard's attention was directed toward the person standing inside it was man in a leather jacket and a black ski-mask, a man none of them had ever seen before and one who wasn't supposed to be there.

Priest erupted with a punch that sent the soldier by the elevator flying into the poker table. The mob soldier at the table went to press the panic button on the tabel, but a knife sliced through the air and plunged into his wrist.

Priest stepped out of the elevator, raising a tazer gun in one hand which he aimed at another soldier and pressed the button, sending two pins trailed by a wire, conducting five hundred volts of electricity. Next, he charged against a soldier, burying his shoulder into his sternum and sending them both tumbling to the floor, Priest rolled and jumped to his feet and aimed a chop to another soldier's throat, then slammed him face first into a wall. The soldier with a knife in his wrist attempted to press the button with his other hand, but found Priest before him in a second, grabbing him by the color and bashing him into the table till he was out cold.

**_---------------------------------------------------------------------_**

"Com'ere." said Angela Maroni, a dark haired, rubensque woman of her twenties as she lay on the bed, wearing a revealing night dress, in a sultry voice as she patted the empty space next to her and looked passionately at Alberto Falcone, a tall handsome man of his mid-thirties who looked back at her lovingly and reached to take off his robe. Angela sat up and sat near the edge of the bed, facing Alberto who understood her intent and leaned down to kiss her.

The door was flung open, having been kicked in with tremendous force from the outside. Falcone spun around while Angela fell back to the bed, and looked at Priest as Priest sauntered into the room, coldly eyeing both.

"We can do this easy, or we can do this hard. I'm here for the woman, you can just step aside, son."  
"Never." growled Alberto as he blocked Priest's way, preventing him from reaching Angela.

"Hard it is, then." said Priest as he lunged with his fist, aiming to knock Alberto off his feet, but he had underestimated his opponent, who ducked out of the way and grabbed Priest's arm under his own, and buried his fist into Priest's ribs, hearing a slight cracking sound, he grabbed him back the back of his hair and whipped him down, slamming his face into the foot board of the bed, causing Priest's nose to gush blood.

"Angela, RUN!" shouted Alberto as he stomped Priest's chest, breaking his cracked ribs.  
"No!"

Priest struggled to get up, but was met with more kicks to the ribcage, on the third cage, he seized the mafia capo's foot in his hands and twisted the man's ankle, sending him crumbling to the floor.

Alberto hit Priest's busted nose with his heel. Driven by fury, Priest lunged with both hands at Alberto's neck and started chocking him to death.

A bottle of Cristal Champagne shattered on Priest's head by Angela and he was fazed long enough for Alberto to maneuver himself out of his grasp, and threw Priest to the ground and crouched on top of him and started punching Priest mercilessly.

"Oh, fur fuck's sake." cursed Priest as he raised his knee sharply into Alberto's nether regions, then with a roar exploded upward, hurling Alberto up at the ceiling, causing several cracks in the plaster before the mob boss plummeted to the floor, unconscious.

"You bastard!"

Angela lunged at Priest with a knife, it penetrated his hand as he tried to stop her. He pushed her onto the bed as he tore the knife out of his hand.

"That'll be the last time you get uppity, cupcake." said Priest angrily, "You're coming with me."

"No!"

Priest could pick up sounds of security guards rushing to the penthouse, they would be there in half a minute and he had to act quick.

"Wasn't askin'." said Priest as he grabbed Angela by the wrist.

"I said No!" shouted Angela as she slapped Priest, whipping his head to the side.

Priest let go of Angela to wipe some blood from his lips, and said, "I don't usually hit women...", before head-butting her and instantly knocking her out, "But you really know how to push a man's buttons."

Priest could hear the guards bursting into the Penthouse, they would charge into the master suit within seconds, the window of opportunity was closing. He headed to the balcony doors and swung them open, looked at the opposite building thirty feet away, then headed to the bed and picked up Angela, groaning at the pain in his broken ribs.

He stood by the suit's door for a second before running at full speed with Angela flung over his shoulder, charging towards the balcony's railing and gathering momentum. The guards burst into the room and fired at him, two bullets hit him in the back, but he ignored the pain and jumped onto the railing, pushing with both feet and sending both him and an unconscious Angela soaring through the air.

As the distance shrunk, Priest realized he might not be able to make it, he was loosing altitude and he wasn't going to make it to his destination, the window cleaner's lift on the building across the street. In despair, he let go of Angela, holding onto her wrist with one hand and stretched the other upward as the distance shrunk to non-existence.

His chest clammed into the lift and his horizontal trajectory came to an end, before he could plummet, he grabbed the lift's bottom with his free hand and hung in the air for a second, dangling. The pain was severe, but the hard part was over.

**_---------------------------------------------------------------------_**

Priest look at Angela's hate-filled eyes, her tied hands and her gagged mouth one last time before slamming the hood or the car's trunk down and entering the car.

"Go." he ordered, and Harry stepped down on the gas pedal.


	17. She's a Rebel, She's a Mole

Here's a new chappie. and Lava, I hope you notice the new addition.

* * *

**Last Night**  
_Gotham City, Maryland_

Two men in a car watched as four men walked out of Maroni's, an upscale Bar in one of the better parts of Central Gotham.

"Hey, who do we have here?" wondered one of the man as he raised a pair of binoculars and zoomed in.

"There's Tom, Dick and Harry Tomassi. There's a new guy, too."  
"Well who is it?" asked the other man.  
"Looks familiar, never seen 'em before."

The second man raised is own binoculars to look for himself, and say the four men just as they were about to get into a car.

"Jesus Christ. That's Judas Priest!"  
"The guy Lieutenant Gordon has been investigating, the guy who did the Gloomy Guss job last week?"

"In the flesh."  
"Well what's he doing here? Is he working for Maroni?"  
"Gee, Moe, you think so?"

_

* * *

_**Now**

"What I want to know," said Harry as he held up Priest's jacket which had two bullet holes in the back at shoulder level, "Is how the hell did you take two bullets and yet you're still standin'?"

Tommy, Dick, Harry and Priest were in the storage room of a warehouse belonging to Salvatore Maroni, waiting for the Boss to come. Priest shrugged as he leaned against their car, "Lucky. It was one bullet and came at me sideways, the other one is an exit wound."

"This don't like a goddamn exit wound!" shouted Harry as he tossed the jacket aside.  
"Yeah, well, if I was shot twice in the back I wouldn't be as lively right now, would I?"

"Guess not. What are ya, a size thirty-seven?"

"Yeah."

Dick pulled a wheeled coat rack from behind a partition and said, "We got these robbing a truck coming in from Metropolis. Excellent Italian leather, we're gonna make a small killing off them."

Dick took off a brown coat off the rack and removed the hanger and plastic covering from it, "Here, lemme."

Priest turned around and allowed Dick to help him into the coat, as soon as he arms were in the sleeves he turned around and moved his arms to get a feel of the new garb, "Nice fit. Thanks."

"No problem."

The garage door automatically opened and a black Lincoln Town car rolled in from the outside, a man stepped out of the passenger's seat, wearing an expensive suit and coat. He walked directly towards Priest.

"Good evening, is she in the car?" he asked, gesturing to the mobsters' vehicle.

"What do you think?" answered Priest as he buried his hands in his pockets.

The man smiled slightly as he walked towards the car and opened one of the back doors. Angela sat there, with dried tears on her cheeks, crossing her arms on her chest.

"Angela?" said the man gently, "Your father misses you."

Angela hung her head, and he said as he pulled her out softly, " Come on, its time for you to go home."

Angela didn't resist, he took off his coat and wrapped it over her shoulders and walked her to his own car, once he shut the door he walked back to Priest and reached into his pocket to pull out an envelope which he handed to Priest, "Though our deal was for you to help us in exchange for us forgetting about the ship incident, Mister Maroni decided that you did deserve to walk away with something."

"This is three grand." said Priest as he quickly counted the fifty dollar bills inside the envelope, "I usually charge four times this much for a job like this."

Priest handed the envelope back, saying, "Don't bother. Are we even, me and your boss?"

"Yes, very much. Mister Maroni also asked me to inquire if he could interest you in a significantly well paying job in a weeks time."

"Tell them that he can't."

The man smiled smugly once more, "Fine then, I'll leave you with a friendly warning. The cops are looking for you, and with Angela back with her father, Falcone can't come after us, he will be looking for someone to punish, someone standing alone; you. So you have two choices, leave the city or come see the boss."

"Are you threatening me? 'Leave town by sunset' kind of thing?"  
"Not at all, Priest, it is as I said a simple warning."

The man turned around and went back to his car which promptly drove off.

"Well, guess this is it, then." said Priest as he walked towards the garage door, "See you in the funnies."

"Take care." said Tommy dryly.

"What did you see?" asked Harry as soon as Priest was out of sight.  
"Exit wound my ass. There were Two bullet holes in his back." said Dick.  
"Freak."

* * *

_Regent's Park, London_

James Bond slept in bed, while Harmony Kendell stood wearing a short night dress by the balcony window. The Window had a southern exposure, so she was able to safely look at the city of London as the sun rose and the darkness subsided.

* * *

_Gotham City, Maryland_

Priest staggered into the Apartment, feeling light headed due to his thirst, he opened the fridge, looking for a bag of blood he might have missed, a scrap of raw meat he could squeeze just a few drops out of, but to no avail. He reached for a bottle of vodka and took the cap off, then tossed it back, emptying the entire bottle into his mouth in thirty seconds.

He looked around the apartment looking for any sign of Mona, but saw that she was nowhere to be seen. His estimation that hard liquor could quench his thirst proved to be wrong.

"Balls." said Priest, two seconds before he fell to the floor, flat on his face.

* * *

**Later that Day, in the Afternoon**  
_Soho, London_

Harmony thanked God for London's dark and gloomy weather as she walked down the sidewalk looking for the boutique.

"There it is." she said to herself as she walked into the store named "Claire's", immediately she headed to the section with all the dresses. She picked out a maroon strapless dress and held it up against her body as she looked into a mirror, only to realize that she could cast not reflection, so she walked to avoid attracting unwanted attention.

She glimpsed a red haired young woman on the other side of the store, standing by the pant-suits and looking at her suspiciously. Harmony simply ignored her and looked down at herself for a minute or so, eventually deciding that the color didn't suit her. She picked out a dark brown one and held it up against herself, after a brief inspection, she decided it may look good on her, but wasn't sure. Suddenly, she sensed someone approaching, she looked up to see the young woman who was eyeing her a moment ago, holding a dark gray suit in her hands.

"Hi."  
"Umm, hi." said Harmony cautiously.

"Have you ever been to where the wild roses grow?" asked the young woman in posh British accent.

"Oh, sorry, I'm straight."

The young woman looked insulted.

"Is your name Harmony?"  
"Yes."  
"Well, Harmony, HAVE you ever been to where the Wild ROSES Grow?"

Something clicked in Harmony's mind and she remembered what she was supposed to say, "Oh, right. Yes, because my name is Elisa Day."

The odd question and the unsuitable answer was a cypher designed by the two women's superiors to authenticate Identity.

"I work with Mason." said the young woman quietly as she looked around to make sure no one was watching.  
"Right, you're... Whatsername..."

The young woman sighed in frustration, "Watts, my names is Mernae H. Watts, why is it so buggering difficult to memorize?"

"Sorry?"

"You were supposed to wait over there." said Whatername as she pointed at the side of the store she had come from.

"Are you sure?"  
"Yes, positive. Let's head to the changing rooms."

The two women headed to adjacent trial stalls to change into the clothes they had picked out.

"From now on, I'll be your liaison to the rest of the movement." said Mernae, "Needless to say, you are not to discuss the true nature of what goes on between us. We'll set up a cover as being new friends, we'll go clubbing once a week, to the movies, theatres, shopping, that sort of thing, to convince everybody that we are in fact new friends. Of course, we will actually have a Mole and Mole Handler relationship. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal." said Harmony as she adjusted the dress around her chest.

"Good." said Mernae as she and Harmoy stepped out of their respective stalls, "What do you think?" she asked as she raised her arms, displaying the suit she wore.

"Nice, but I'd probably go with another color. How about me?" asked Harmony as she spun around, modeling her dress.

"Depends, work or leisure? On second though, take it anyway. The less blood Bond has in his head, the better for us."

The two women stepped back into their stalls.

"So, how are things with Bond?" asked Mernae as she started changing.  
"Fine, I guess... He doesn't suspect anything."  
"How about your Residence?"  
"The League is putting me up in an Apartment."  
"You are sleeping with Bond, correct?"  
"Yes."  
"How is it?"  
"Well, not really bad, I mean its kinda good, but he IS really old, so you can't-"  
"I'm asking about the Apartment, not sex with Bond." said Mernae with a roll of the eyes, before following under her breath, "Daft Tart."

"Oh, it's nice, two bedrooms, four blocks from here."  
"My Apartment is in Soho as well." said Mernae before she exited, "I'll continue shopping some other day, you can buy the dress if you like. Let's go have some coffee, properly commence our Beautiful sham friendship on the right foot."

* * *

**Two Days Ago**  
_Crawley, England_

"Captain Nemo!" said the old man as he removed his reading glasses, placed his newspaper aside and stood up to greet the approaching man.

"Q, it is great to see you as always."  
"Now, Captain, I will not have myself referred to by that damned letter, you know very well I'm no longer with Six."  
"My apologies, Major Boothroyd."  
"No need to apologize." said Boothroyd as he and Nemo shook hands, "Please, do pour us both a drink."

Boothroyd's residence was a very comfortable, very well decorated and furnished town house surrounded by a beautiful garden. The two men sat in the living room as a scratchy Duke Elington record played in the background.

"Do you have any company?" asked Nemo cautiously as he poured two glasses of Sherry from a mini-bar in the corner.

"You know me, Nemo, all by my lonesome ever since Evelyn died five years ago."  
"I'm sorry..."  
"Don't be." said Boothroyd as he received the glass of Sherry and took a sip, "Anyway, I know that's not what you meant, I have a live-in housekeeper; nice girl from Manchester. Luckily you've caught me on her day off."

"What makes you think I'm here for business?" asked Nemo as he drank.  
"Nemo, this is 'me' you're talking to. Tell me, has anything of the gear I've supplied with last time survived?"

Nemo reached into his pocket to pull out a brown envelope that he emptied onto the table, pouring out a golden wedding band, a wrist watch and several other normal looking everyday objects, some of them he had used in breaking Mona out of Prison.

"Did it give you any trouble?"  
"You know it didn't."

Boothroyd collected the gadgets and placed them in his pocket.

"I appreciate you returning it. In all my years of practice you are the only one to return anything that I'd given. Take Bond for example, no matter how trivial an item would be, he'd always get around to loosing it and-or destroying it. How is Bond anyway?"

"Alive and well. I haven't seen him in years though."  
"Do tell me when the bastard finally contracts an incurable venereal disease, will you?"

"You'll be the first to know," said Nemo with a smile, " Enough about him, I need something from you."

"Would you like to take a drive, we'll visit my warehouse and you can see some of the new equipment my men have built?"

"No, some other time, perhaps. I need you to build this for me." said Nemo as he presented the former MI-6 quart master with a folded stack of papers he pulled out of his jacket, Boothroyd took it from him curiously and unfolded it, he skimmed through the sheets of paper, numbering ten, containing design notes, diagrams and some tables.

"You designed this?" asked Boothroyd, who failed to hide his being impressed with what Nemo gave him.  
"Yes, can you build it?"  
"It'll be expensive."  
"I take it that you know how to make since you know how much it might cost?"  
"Yes, it'll take some time, but I don't see anything too troublesome, your plans provide me with all I need."

"That's good to know," said Nemo as he handed Boothroyd a CD, "That's the more detailed plans, I'll appreciate it if you have all this seen by as less people as possible."  
"No bother, I'll delegate the details and hand the assembly duties to my trusted apprentices."

"Excellent." said Nemo as he stood up, "I must go now."  
"Really? I was hoping you'd stay for lunch."  
"I can't, I have other appointment, but I'll come back for Dinner if that's alright."  
"Splendid. See you then."

* * *

R&R.


	18. The Professional

Priest looked around himself suspiciously, as he stood amid an endless field of Strawberries, below the warm sun, completely safe. He kept looking around himself till he spied another figure, he instantly walked towards it, and as he got close he could make out that it was a woman in a white shirt and a skirt, Aryan looking and nearly six feet tall.

"Do you have any idea where this would be, sister?"

She turned around looked at him in bewilderment, "You're dieing." she said.

Priest sighed sadly, but cracked a smile as he looked up at the sun with glee, "But you're glue."

The woman slapped him hard.

"Jeez, Lady! What the fuck was that for?"

"Priest, wake up!" called a great disembodied voice as the woman slapped him twice more.

* * *

**Now  
**_Gotham City, Maryland_

"Hey, don't push my buttons!" said Priest as he woke up, unsure exactly where he was, he looked directly up to see Mona crouched beside him, and looking at the blinds he could see it was daytime outside. Feeling the surface beneath him, he realized he was on the squeaky cold wooden kitchen floor.

"What time is it?" asked Priest as he sat up.  
"It's two A.M., where the hell were you yesterday?"  
"Baltimore, rescuing Mafia Princess, got a new Coat for my trouble."  
"What?"

"God, I'm tired." said Priest, "I need to drink. We're fresh out of blood."  
"Why didn't you get some?" asked Mona as she went through the grocery bags on the kitchen table that she had brought only minutes ago before finding Priest unconscious.  
"I tried, got pinched."  
"By who?"  
"Who else? Tom, Dick and Harry."  
"What?"  
"The cops know I pulled the business in the Harbor."

Mona opened a bag of blood and poured it into a massive beer glass, then presented it to Priest, "Here, drink. What the hell are you talking about?"

Priest gulped the warm crimson eagerly, then placed the glass on the floor as he breathed heavily, feeling his energy gradually returning and his mental faculties regenerated. He explained to her what had happened to him in full.

"It's all your fault you know, if you had played it cool, like a professional back at the docks, the cops wouldn't know about you and nor would the mob."

"You know, hindsight is down right annoying when it follows the shit hitting the proverbial fan." said Priest as he stood up, on wobbly legs at first but steadied quickly, "What have you been up to?"

"Working. I'm may have found a lead." said Mona as she walked over to the big table by the window, the one that had the surveillance system mounted on top of it.

"The other night, I broke into the Castling Bank."  
"Why?"  
"Long story short, one of their bankers launders money for the League. Anyway, I got some files that I think detail their dealing with the Novick Building."

"Mona, my brain is rotting. Would you mind cutting to the interesting part?"  
"Okay. The banker, Alan Gowen, has been meeting monthly with a League representative, and bi-annually with Josephine. There are no names mentioned, Josephine is refered to as simply 'J' or 'Jos.', the representative is referred to a 'M.H.'."

"That's the interesting part?"  
"You don't understand, the representative has got to be high up in the Novick Building. We get to the Representative, we get to Josephine."  
"Just like that?"

"Its not gonna be as easy as it sounds, but yeah."  
"Alright, so I assume we're gonna have to tail the representative. When is the representative supposed to be meeting with the Banker?"  
"According to the files, the meetings are usually held on the second Tuesday of every month. That's ten days from now."

"Did you tell the Shah of Enigma?"  
"I haven't told Nemo, yet."  
"Well go right ahead, Miss Professional."

* * *

**1998**  
_New York City_

"What the Hell are ya lookin' at, Bitch?"

Mona brushed away her hesitation, and raised her hand which held a revolver tightly, holding it inches from the bald man's forehead, before pulling the trigger.

They say that time infinitely slows down when you die, and that second feels like an eternity, you may even see your life flashing by, from birth, passing through childhood, going through the various stages of your life and the event that have lead to your demise. What they don't say, however, is that when you take a life, the same thing happens, and though your life doesn't necessarily flash before your eyes, your future usually does.

Mona knew that nothing would ever be the same again, she had agreed to kill this man to settle her and her father's debts with the Punchinelo mob, passed down upon her father's death to her and her sister Lisa. She did it hoping to put the past behind her, but it was now that she realized how foolish that was of her, she could never turn away.

The trigger was pulled, the hammer fell on the back of the bullet, the gunpowder ignited, sending the tip of the bullet through the barrel it emerged out of the muzzle along with a flash and an amount of filed gun-metal invisible to the naked eye, it traveled the few inches, before the tip pierced its way through the skin, then penetrated the flesh and the bones of his skull, before tunneling through the gray matter of his brain, turning it into mush. The target's head whipped to the side from the impact. As he did, a stream of blood gushed out of the brand new hole in his head, and sprayed the red matter, mixed with fragments of brain and bone caught in the current onto a wall.

Time returned to its normal speed, and she quickly aimed the gun at the second target's chest and pulled the trigger twice. The second target had been looking down on his plate when she shot the first, and he barely had any time to react and, she never saw his face.

She lowered her hand to her side and let the gun drop as she headed to the door, it was only then that the busboy dropped the dishes, the sound of crashing plates snapped the restaurant patrons out of it, they screamed in horror as the raven haired killer exited the restaurant, and the reality of what had happened dawned on them.

Outside, the young woman of Twenty-Four got into a car that screeched to a halt next to her, then drove off just as quick. Inside it, Mona and Lisa embraced.

"Oh, Mona, thank god you're Okay." said Lisa as she stroked her beloved sister's hair.

She was in one piece, but not Okay, thought Mona to herself. She was a killer, and a killer was never to cease to be.

* * *

**Now**  
_The Atlantic Ocean_

Nemo stood before the screen of the communication setup, looking upon two men of their early thirties with brownish blond hair.

"Mr. Gump, Mr. Hunting, I hope you've managed to decrypt the Berlin Discs." said Nemo.  
"It's not that easy," said Gump, who wore a pair of oval rimless glasses and a goatte in a southern American accent, "This is some pretty cutting edge stuff. It'll take a longer time to get what we want out of it."

"We may have an idea what it might be, though," said Hunting, who was clean shaven in a South-Boston accent, "The Boys and I think it might be a decoder."

"Care to elaborate on that?"  
"It's a special program used to translate data coded in a very unique way, without this, you could never decipher anything written in that particular code. It's very sophisticated, Sir, I've never seen anything like it. Whatever this is used to decode, it's pretty important."

"I understand," said Nemo as he reached to press a button, "I'll keep in touch, have a good day, Gentlemen."

Nemo rubbed his eyes as the connection was terminated and the screen blinked shut, he reached for the disks that were on console in front of him and looked at the label.

Having learned of these disks from the Korean Professor, Captain Nemo contacted his associate, Captain Barbossa and informed him of the situation, Barbossa alerted the Berlin cell who found the disk and handed it to Barbossa, who in turn sent them through Mail to an address in London, where Nemo picked them up, and sent a copy electronically to the movement's technical specialists, keeping the original for himself.

He looked at the discs for the umpteenth time, at the sticker that was half-peeled and torn off, but half of which remained on the disk. It was a black label with a red emblem on it, one resembling a Phoenix.

* * *

_Jabal Nafuss, Qumar_

The old prisoner looked up as the door to his cramped cell opened, letting in some light, though it was much stronger his eyes that had grown accustomed to the darkness. He raised his hand upward to filter the blinding rays as a massive figure filled the doorway.

"It has been three months, MacGuffin, when will you listen to the voice of reason and admit who you are?" came a voice in an accented English.  
"I'm not MacGuffin." whimpered the prisoner in a scotish accent.  
"A normal man, after going through what have you been through all this time would have admitted being MacGuffin, just to spare himself further anguish. So you see, my friend, that by claiming you are not MacGuffin, you prove to me that you _are_ him."

"I said I AM NOT MACGUFFIN!!!" shouted the old prisoner, his blue-gray eyes shinning with fury as he barked at his captors.

The jailer chuckled, "Fine, have it your way, tomorrow you will leave the _comfort_ of your solitary confinement and will face more persuasive means to confess."

The door was shut, and the prisoner once again found himself with darkness.


	19. They're Everywhere

**Now**  
_Gotham City, Maryland_

Lieutenant James Gordon sat on his couch in his living room, the coffee table was covered with police reports and mugshots. He removed his glasses and cleaned them with a napkin as he heard a voice saying, "If Aunt Sarah sees all this, she'll freak."

A young woman walked over to sit on an arm chair by the couch, handing a mug filled with black coffee to Gordon while holding another she took a sip from as she put her legs up underneath her.

"Oh, hi Barbara." he said as he tried to clear everything from the table, "I'll just all this out of the way."  
"You can keep it there if you want."  
"Nah, there is stuff here that might not want to read."

"I read the papers, Uncle Jim; I know what this city is like."

Gordon smiled and stopped, then redistributed his papers.

"I've seen you brooding over these the past few days, tough case?" asked Barbara.

Gordon hesitated to tell her about it, but went ahead and said, "Yes... It's... A ship carrying illegal immigrants was coming in through the Harbor, a wanted criminal attacked the crew and stole away the women they were transporting, and we're assuming he was not acting alone. Then as it turns out, he's working for the mafia kingpin of the City."  
"Boss Maroni, right?"

"Right." said Gordon, wondering what the city was going to when even respectable, intelligent college students knew who ran the City's underground, "Now these women had a terrible future ahead of them when they came, but now? Not our worst nightmares may be fit to describe what is in store for them. If we can catch Judas Priest, we might get a chance to save these women."

Gordon looked up to see Barbara's face frozen in shock; he placed his mug on the table and reached to his niece, reassuringly stroking his arm.

"Jesus Christ, what was I thinking? Was it all too-"  
"Did you say Judas Priest?"  
"Yeah. Why?"

Barbara reached forward to search through the papers, eventually raising a picture of a man smiling smugly, standing in front of a police height marker indicating his height as 5'8".

"What's wrong, Barbara?"  
"I've met him."

* * *

_The Atlantic Ocean_

Nemo flipped through thirteen pages written by the Korean Professor when she was first rescued a week ago, besides describing the nature of her work, she had listed names, locations, dates that she heard or read sporadically without knowing their significance.

The intelligence division of the movement had checked the entire list, researched every name, dug up every location, investigated every date, and presented their findings to the four masterminds of the movement.

Nemo picked up the report in question; he had read it six times since he got it half a day ago. Every man and woman was dead or practically so, having been killed in a burglary gone wrong where the culprits were never found, or died in some sort of freak accident or simply disappeared.

Well almost everyone.

There was a name on the list, Gideon MacGuffin that didn't fit quit well with the others. He went missing in '88, presumably drowned along with his yacht off the coast of Florida. A body was found, but it was too decayed to have been identified as MacGuffin's.

Nemo heard the name MacGuffin connected to Project Phoenix for the first time, twelve years ago. Gideon MacGuffin himself was a man shrouded in mystery. Born in Scotland in 1933, attended Eton and graduated with honors before going on to Oxford, majoring in Economics and minoring in Foreign Languages, again graduating at the top of his class; an Extraordinary Gentleman by all means.

What followed after that up until he died was a matter shrouded in mystery. There is an official account of a brilliant career, but men as seasoned as Nemo and Mason could see it was only a facade. MacGuffin had another history, a clandestine, much more significant life, somehow connected to the League, and so magnificently so that they had went through great lengths to ensure it was hidden, erasing every trace of it, placing the movement in a dead end when it came to this man.

But Nemo and Mason knew better.

* * *

_Cairo, Egypt_

Robert Barnes woke up from his uneasy sleep; it filled with all manners of monsters and apocalypse. He sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes, his mind cleared and he was able to look around coherently, it was five a.m., the call for the dawn prayer came from a nearby mosque.

Barnes moved to the edge of his bed and reached for the night stand, picking up a bottle of whisky that he opened and poured into a glass which he subsequently drank from.

He stood up and put on a pair of trousers and a t-shirt, not bothering with shoes, and then exited his room.

Aisha was asleep on the couch, Sayid was in his usual position at his table amid all his papers and equipment, hunched on the wooden surface, apparently grabbing a bit of sleep. Almasry was awake; he was looking at something in his hands and smiling, oblivious to Barnes who stood behind him. Barnes peeked over his shoulder to see what he was looking at; it was a young girl no older than sixteen.

"Anything I can help with, Barnes?" asked Fareed Almasry, the old Egyptian Assassin without looking back.

Barnes cracked the faintest of smiles, "I don't think I've heard you speak in weeks."  
"I didn't have any to say."  
"Daughter?" asked Barnes as he gestured  
"Grand-daughter." said Almasry as he moved the picture to the back of the stack in his hands and gazed upon the picture now before him.  
"Have you been in touch with your son, then?"  
"Barnes, my son has been under the impression that I'm dead for the past twenty years."  
"How did you get these pictures then?"

"Barnes, please, we're spies, remember?"  
"Right." said Barnes then stepped away, "Are you ready for Friday?"

Almasry didn't answer and simply moved the picture he was looking at to the back of the stack. Barnes knew that he and Almasry had just had their conversation for the day and in all probability the month. So he stepped away and walked past Aisha and Sayid, heading to the balcony. Barnes leaned against the railing, sipped his whisky and looked ahead at a tourist ship as it floated across the Nile.

* * *

**Gotham City, Maryland**

Mona sat at the table, the communications laptop in front of her, while Priest lay on the couch reading a the CD booklet of the self titled album of Ziggy Stardust and his band, known as the Spiders from Mars, they were unanimously hailed by both fans and critics as the most influential group on the music scene in a long time, though their gimmick of pretending to be love and peace messiahs from the planet mars was too weird for some people.

"Priest, are you coming?" asked Mona.  
"I can hear all the way from here." said Priest apathetically.  
"Priest's... busy."

Nemo rolled his eyes, obviously annoyed, but seemed to be in a hurry.

"I have an assignment for you. There was a man in Delaware, formerly in the employ of the League, the reason I'm using word like formerly and was is that he died last week natural causes. I need you to copy his hard drive as well as retrieve some items."

"Because you're half way across the world, right?" asked Priest.

Nemo ignored Priest, "These items are league related, and they will be looking for them so you may want to watch out for League operatives nearby, operate in the utmost stealth, do you hear me Priest? Don't think I don't know what you've been up to, I know you have the Gotham City Police Department after you, a matter I wish you could resolve quietly and professionally."

Priest grunted in disapproval but said nothing.

"The reason these items were not found already is that the League has been looking in the wrong places, we know this man had a mistress, you will search her apartment, report your findings to me and I'll dispatch an associate for collection. Standby for information."

* * *

**Five days from Now**  
_Manhattan, New York City_

The officers stepped away from the body that sat on the floor, leaning against the convenience store's floor as the Detective arrived to inspect the body.

"Is this who I think it is?" asked the Detective.  
"Yep, we found ID on him."

The Detective rubbed his chin as he looked at the familiar face, he reached for his wrist to feel a pulse and found none, he leaned so that his ear was next to the victim's nose, and there was no breath.

"Max, you insult us. Don't you think we've done all that already?"  
"I once saw this man take a knife in the gut, and I heard about him partying in New Orleans the following month on Mardi Gras."

"Okay, do you think he'll be celebratin' next Mardi Gras, then?"

"No," the Detective Payne stood up and stepped away from the body, taking one last look at it, before heading over to talk to the clerk, "Judas Priest is dead."


	20. Anatomy of a Vampire

**Now**  
_Suffragette City, Delaware_

Priest looked down the hall as he leaned against the wall next to the open door, keeping lookout while Mona searched the apartment.

"Hey Sax, did you find anything yet?" he asked loudly.  
"Quiet, Priest, if you think I'm moving too slowly, you can just come in and help me." said Mona, rolling her eyes. She looked over at the computer screen to see that the hard drive cloning was still at 27. She kept pulling books off shelves and flipping through them, looking for anything useful.

"Damn, you'd think an employee of a diabolical intelligence Agency could afford a faster computer." said Priest, standing before the computer, "What time is she supposed to be coming home?"

"Erm, we still have a couple of hours." said Mona, somewhat astonished, "How did you get in here?"

"I walked in."  
"But... Don't you need to get invited in?"  
"Invited in?" scoffed Priest, "Who's been filling you pretty little head with that?"  
"I though vampires couldn't get into someone's home without being invited in by them., at least that's what its like in the movies."

"Not all vampires are created equal, cupcake."  
"Then why did you stay outside all this while?"  
"You asked me to keep a look out, remember? I can do it from here, I just had dinner and my hearing's on top form." said Priest as he started puling books off the shelves, and doing as Mona.

"So what else is wrong about what they say?"  
"I didn't say it was wrong, just imprecise. There are many species of vampires, historically, the first were the Turok-Han, the cavemen vampires, though some say they're a myth, eventually evolving into the Turok-Hai; modern vampires forming the biggest part of the vampire population; they need an invitation to get into someone's home, their faces turn into a bit bull's when they feed, they can be killed by holy water, wood in the heart, sunlight and decapitation.

"Then there's the LaMagran vampires. Legend has it that in ancient Samaria, there lived a blood thirsty warlord named Dagon, worshipped as a god by his people. The demigod LaMagra was so impressed by Dagon's ruthlessness that he granted him a bit of himself, he made him a vampire, the first of his kind. Dagon waged fierce war on everything in sight, but eventually finding little left to conquer, he felt there no longer was a point, so he went to the desert and slept, but no before ordering his followers to build a tomb around him. Dagon picked up a new name after he was turned, it was Draculla."

"Come on..." said Mona with a chuckle.  
"Anyway, his progeny survived to the day, but whereas Draculla couldn't be killed by anything, they had grown weak with time, becoming allergic to sunlight, silver and garlic, then there's the decapitation thing.

"Moving several millennia into the future, we come upon the Romanian Count known as Vlad Tepish of the order of the Dragon, prince of Walachia. Tepish was a real badass, Hell, he was a sick fuck, during the crusades he had picked up a fetish for impaling the invading Turkish soldiers on spears. The Turks, seeking retribution for the gruesome deaths of their legions sent one of their finest into the Romanian's domain, this Turk, in the guise of a Romanian soldier delivered a message to Elisebtha, Tepish's wife, telling her that her husband had died in battle. Elisebtha, distraught by these false reports committed suicide. When Tepish returned home victorious, he was shocked to find out what happened, and when his Head Priest informed him that according to Christian Dogma she was damned to hell for all eternity, it drove Tepish to renounce god and slaughter every member of the church he could find. Eventually killed, he made a deal with the Devil in the afterlife, and returned to life as the thing nightmares are made of. He was a vampire with the ability to control wind and fire, to turn into various forms of animals including clusters of bats and vermin, he could recover from any wound and sunlight could only hamper some of his abilities.

"Embracing his dark destiny, he decided to pick up a new name, choosing Draculla, after the Summarian god-king he admired. The count eventually met his demise in the early Eighteen Nineties, but not before passing on his vampirism to the woman he believed to be the reincarnation of his beloved dead wife, an English Chemist whose name I can't really remember, I heard that she died in during World War One. There are other breeds of vampires, such as the Corvinus dynasty, but the three I just described are the ones that matter."

"What kind are you?"  
"LaMagran." said Priest as he inspected a snowglobe of Phoenix, Arizona, discovering a key taped to its bottom.

"Bingo." said Priest as he stuck the hey in his pocket.

"How long was it, when you were turned into what you are?"  
"I never was," said Priest as he continued to go through the books, "I was born like this."

* * *

**The Following Day**  
_Gotham City, Maryland_

There a knock of the door of Mona and Priest's apartment, the two occupants exchanged a look. Priest walked over the kitchen, picked up a knife and headed to the front door, while Mona picked up a shotgun from under the couch and aimed it at the door.

Priest opened the door as he held the knife behind him, he peered through the narrow opening to see who had come. It was a brown haired man of forty-five dressed in a members only jacket.

"Nemo sent me," said the man in a scouser accent, "Billy Shears, at your service."  
"What does one snowman say to another snowman?" asked Priest.  
"It smells like carrots." said Shears confidently, proving his identity.

Priest stepped back and opened the door, allowing Shears in. Mona lowered the shotgun as Priest closed the door and placed the knife back on the kitchen table.

"Did you run into trouble?" asked Shears.  
"A car load of now dead Leaguers." said Priest as he stood in the kitchen, leaning with his back to the fridge, "We got rid of the bodies, covered our tracks."

"We didn't find much," said Mona, "We got the hard drive, and found a key. We didn't find any of the other things Nemo asked for."

"Well then, If that is all, I better be on my way." said Shears as he headed to the door, holding the key and hard drive in his hands.

"Good riddance." said Priest as soon as Shears was gone.  
"What's your problem?" asked Mona.  
"I'm getting fed up with Nemo and his cronies, is all. Telling us to do his damn dirty work without knowing why."  
"Remind me, Priest, what is it that you do for a living?"

"Fine, take his side. The fact is you don't know about Nemo any more'n I do."  
"I don't know more about Nemo any more than I do about you, hell, I don't even know what the hell the D.R.I. is!" said Mona as she turned around, to realize she was talking to no one, as Priest had left through the open door.

"Bastard."

* * *

**Four Hours Later**  
_Damascus, Syria_

The four members of the Cairo cell sat at different spots of the Inn, with Barnes sitting at the center table, attentively looking at the blank screen of their communications lap top.

"So, we're here," said Aisha as she sat on the edge of the bed and sharpened her dagger, "And yet, we still don't have the intelligence needed to perform the mission we are here for."

"We'll get it soon." said Barnes as he kept looking at the screen.

"Excuse me, Robert," said Sayid as he and Almasry inspected the weapons, "But that's what you said four days ago."

"Meanwhile," said Aisha, "Our fallen comrade quickly approaches his execution date, while our Russian benefactor is taking his bloody time getting us his location. As I remember, he didn't approve of our suggestion to rescue our friend, did he?"

"Look, I've known General Raimus far longer than any of you. If he says he'll find the location, that means that he'll find it."

A stationary message inside a blinking rectangle appeared on the screen, saying 'Red October attempting Communication'.

Barnes smiled and said, "Speak of the Devil."

* * *

**Ten Minutes Earlier**  
_The Atlantic Ocean_

Nemo sat at his chair inside the Yellow Submarine's Bridge, looking at the screen of the communications device, where General Raimus looked back at him.

"Derek Flint," started Nemo, "the Agent who caught the member of our Cairo Cell was transferred to the Delaware Station, he passed away last month from Genuine Natural Reasons. The Gotham Cell got me his hard Drive. Upon mining it, I have found what I believe to be the location where he is being held."

Nemo then pressed a button on the console, sending the precise coordinates of the safe-house over to Raimus.

"Thank you, Captain. I better speak to the Cairo Cell, now."  
"Why did you approve such a mission, General? We've agreed years ago, the four of us that a man that falls behind stays behind."  
"Yes, I remember. It was Barbossa who proposed it, if I recall."  
"Yes, its an old rule from the Pirate Codex, you see."  
"Well, I'm not a pirate, I'm an army, and we never leave a man behind."  
"Very well, good luck, General."  
"Good day, Captain."

* * *

**Later That Day**  
_Gotham City, Maryland_

"What's the matter, honey, you look like you've seen a ghost." said Priest as he stood in front of the checkout counter of the Gotham City Public Library.

Barbara contained her shock as she grabbed the lower edge of the counter to steady herself, and answered with a voice she forced to be calm, "Nothing, Its just a long day. How... How are you?"

"Surviving." said Priest, "And you?"  
"Not bad. Are you... still working on your book?"  
"My book? Yeah, its coming along nicely, I'm thinking about killing off my, erm, protagonist, I'm thinking maybe I'll have her committing suicide."

"So, what beings you here?"  
"You."  
"Me?" asked Barbara in astonishment and gulped.  
"Yeah, I took a rain check on that party. I don't know if there's a party tonight but I thought I might buy you a drink."  
"I'm twenty."  
"Ah, you don't drink. Very Responsible of you, still, we could do something. When do you get off?"

Barbara checked her watch, "About twenty minutes."  
"Oh, should I come back?"  
"No, you can stay. I just have to make a call."  
"Oh, sure, go ahead."

Barbara smiled nervously and stepped back, then headed to her office. Once there she gut the door behind her and stepped to the spot farthest from the door, and dialed a number on her cell phone and held it to her ear as she looked at the door, anticipating someone coming in.

'Lieutenant Gordon, who am I speak-'  
"Uncle Jim?" asked Barbara in a near whisper, "This is Barbara."  
'Oh, hi, Barbara. Is anything wrong?'  
"That man you spoke about, Judas Priest, he's here."  
'What? Where'  
"The Library."  
'Why?'  
"I think he's asking me out."  
'Listen, Barbara, you can't leave with him, you gotta got out of there. Wait! With him there's no telling what might happen, he might take off, he might come after you. Are the guards there?'  
"Yeah."  
'Always stay within full view of them, and do not leave the building with him, just try to stall. I'll be there as fast as I can.'  
"Hurry."

* * *

R&R.

**Next: **Our Vampire Protagonist has to slip away rom Gothams best, while the Anti-League's team in the middle east has to take matters into their own hands.


	21. Down and Out

**Now**  
_Gotham City, Maryland_

"It's my... publisher," said Priest as he stood next to Barbara Gordon as they waited for her shift to end, "He's this Indian guy, I think he's out to shaft me."

"So, why don't you leave?" asked Barbara, looking at the clock on the wall, praying that he uncle would be there within the next few minutes.

"Good question, I just really don't know. In some part it's the money, but I've got a partner and it seems pretty improper for me to just bail out on her and leave her with all the work to do."

Priest could hear the door to the library open and several men coming, but didn't look back, even as they came closer, he didn't bother to turn around. It wasn't until he saw Barbara's eyes widen and step back did he realize something was going on.

"Judas Priest!" ordered shouted Lieutenant Gordon as he and a few other policemen raised their guns and pointed them at him, "Got on the floor, hands behind interlocked behind your head!"

Priest looked over his shoulder calmly to see the four guns pointed at him.

"Barbara, move away from him." said Gordon as he stepped forward, while Priest raised his hands slowly before getting to his knees, asking Barbara as he did so, "You called the cops on me?"

"Shut up," said Gordon, "Lopez, cuff him, and be careful."

* * *

_Syria_

Barnes, Sayid and Aisha stood in a row by their SUV which was parked on the side of a dessert highway in the final hour before sunrise, looking at a house that was one of a few in the mostly vacant area. Barnes passed the binoculars down the row to Sayid to allow him to look at the safe house for himself.

"Sane will be executed by noon at the latest, if they hadn't already killed him." said Barnes as he looked up the highway, to see a delivery truck fast approaching, "We'll move quickly and precisely, there is zero room for error. Now tell me, what's the game plan?"

"As soon as the diversion is staged," said Sayid as he passed Aisha the binoculars, "I'll head there and ask for help."

"While I approach them and rig their vehicles with explosives." said Aisha emotionlessly as she looked through the binoculars, "I'll circle and come in from behind; we'll take out the immediate threat with minimal noise."

"And everyone else?"

"You will be here with Fareed and the getaway, if and when myself and Aisha have found Aladdin, we'll come here." said Sayid.  
"While providing cover fire for us."

"Good," said Barnes as he opened the car door as the truck approached, he took out a sniper rifle and stepped back calmly, "Lets back it up a bit."

The three walked ten feet back as the truck came speeding, it crashed into the Parked SUV, turning it into a twisted heap of metal and glass, sweeping it across the Asphalt for a considerable distance before stopping.

The driver's door opened and out hopped Almasry, perfectly unharmed and unphased, holding a duffle bag filled with weapons.

"Fareed, are you Okay?"

Almasry smiled slightly and gave them one thumb up.

"I guess that's my cue."

* * *

_Gotham City, Maryland_

Officer Lopez holstered his weapon as he leaned above Priest, taking one of his hands and slapping a handcuff on it, saying, "You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a state of law, you have the right to an att-"

Priest rolled over underneath the officer before he could place his other hand in the cuffs faster than humanly possible, then grabbed him by the collars and buried his feet in his chest, ten with one hand he took his pistol out of its holster and rolled back, pressing hard against the officer's chest, hurling him at two other officers. As he rolled to his feet he jumped up and over the counter, then dove to the floor and took out down Barbara.

It all happened so fast that the policemen couldn't react properly and now found themselves facing Priest who stood up, holding Barbara up, pressing the officer's gun against her back.

"This ain't the day you're gonna be taking me in." said Priest through gritted teeth, "Lower your guns."

"Let her go, Priest, there is no escape, the building is surrounded." said Gordon.  
"It's a good thing I have 'Barbara' here to hold your men off. You wouldn't want anything to happen to her, right? She is after all your... What is it, exactly? Daughter? Niece? Little Sister? I bet its daughter. Put your gun down, Detective Gordon, or by god I will shoot. You think I won't do it? You think I've never killed somebody? I've killed time and time again; I killed men and women who could barely be called men or women. Drop the gun, Gordon."

Gordon contemplated his options, but he couldn't fool himself for long, there were none. He hesitantly and painfully lowered his gun and placed it on the ground, feeling powerless, wondering how he was trusting his kin's safety to a psychotic criminal.

"Do as he says." said Gordon.  
"But Lieutenant.."  
"I said lower your guns!"

The officers grudgingly lowered their guns and placed them on the floor.

"Now step back." said Priest, which they did, "Call your men and your snipers off Gordon, we're leavin'."

Priest placed his mouth next to Barbara's ear, asking, "Do you have a car?"  
"Go to hell."  
"Sure, wanna give me a ride?"

* * *

_Syria_

"What should I do?" asked one of the Agents as he nervously patted his gun to make sure it was there.

_(AN: Dialogue is naturaly translated from Arabic)_

"Answer the door, what else?" said his partner as the banging on the door continued, "But be careful, we're awfully close to the execution. Try to get rid of him."

The Agent grunted and got up, straightened his jacket and headed for the door; he carefully opened it and looked at the dark skinned frantic man in a gray delivery uniform outside.

"Its four-thirty in the morning, you idiot." said the Agent angrily, "What in god's name is wrong with you?"

"Please, help me!" sobbed Sayid, "I was coming in from the city, I must have dozed off because I hit a car, and.. and.. and there was a woman inside! Oh god! She's still alive, but badly injured. I need to use your phone."

Sayid pushed the door open and forced his way in; the other Agent stood up to block Sayid's way, "You have some nerve, brother. You better get out before I call the police."

"Please, Sir!" cried Sayid, "Look for yourself; you can see my truck there, right outside on the highway. I don't care about anything, you the woman in the car can still be saved, please, Sir! I beg of you!"

"I said out." said the Agent.  
"Erm... Kareem, there is some wreckage on the highway, it's a delivery truck and a black SUV." said the other Agent as he peered thought he drapes, scratching the back of his neck.

Kareem rolled his eyes and thought about it for a moment, then sighed as he grudgingly obliged.

"Oh, fine."

As Kareem stepped into the doorframe, he thought he saw a flash in the distance, a fraction of a second before the bullets from Barnes' rifle hit him in the head and sent him to his maker.

The other Agent, hearing the man fall to the floor turned around quickly, his hand reaching for his gun. Sayid was ready for him as he had pulled out his own silenced pistol as soon as Kareem was killed; he aimed at the Agent and pulled the trigger before he could get a grip on his weapon.

The soft green drapes were stained with blood, Sayid approached cautiously, pulling the trigger twice more and firing into the Agent's chest. Once he was sure of the fatality, he searched through his pockets finding a set of keys which he dropped into his own.

Aisha came through the corridor, wiping her bloodied dagger clean using a hand towel.

"Any? asked Sayid.  
"One in the kitchen, one by the door." said Aisha as she slipped the dagger into a sheath in her side.  
"That makes five. Our intelligence said there would be eight to ten."  
"There'll be at least two with Sane." said Aisha as she cocked her gun.

* * *

_Gotham City, Maryland_

"Drive." said Priest, sitting in the back seat with a gun aimed at Barbara's head, having just gotten into the car in full sight of the police who were unable to touch Priest without risking Barbara's safety. Barbara silently inserted her car key into the ignition and started the car before driving off.

"Head for the Bridge."

The two of them were silent for several minutes while she drove, eventually she asked with a trembling voice, "What are you going to do to me?"  
"Just get me to the bridge and I won't do you a damn thing."

"Oh, really? Just like you didn't do a thing to those women?"  
"Women? What are you talking about?"  
"The immigrants coming into the harbor.."  
"I didn't do anything to them, they're perfectly safe. I give you my word."  
"Right, the word of a raping, murdering drug dealer!"

"Hey! I take offence to that; I ain't never raped anybody in my life."  
"Well, horray for you! I guess that makes you a saint."  
"Just shut up and drive."

Moment of nervous silence passed before Barbara asked, "You're never going to make it, you know. The moment you're across the bridge you're gonna get caught."  
"Who says I'm going to cross the bridge?"

"What do you mean?"  
"You'll find out soon enough."

* * *

_Syria_

"Do you have any idea how long it has been, Aladdin Sane?" asked the interrogator as he extinguished his cigarettes on the prisoner's shoulder, the latter flinched and twisted, but said nothing and didn't make any sound to indicate pain.

"I'll tell you, since you seem to have lost all perception of time. It's been Ninety days, and you know what that means, right? Enemy personnel are held for this time and are interrogated, if they do not cooperate, they are executed; that is League policy. You've given us nothing, and unless you start singing like a sparrow, you will be executed eight hours from now. Just tell us who are the other members of your cell and how can General Marko Raimus, your leader, can be found.""

Aladdin looked with mad, green, hate-filled eyes at his Interrogator and said nothing.

"Do you know how we do it? We put a bullet in your spine, which sometimes doesn't kill you right away and could cause you a world of pain before it does. Regardless of what happens, you are put into the incinerator in the next room and cremated, dead or alive. Does that sound like fun to you, Aladdin Sane?"

"I've always liked trying new things." said Sane finally in a voice close to a whisper.

"Fine, then." said the Interrogator as he banged on the door, "Have it your way. Open the door, I'm coming out."

The door opened, and half a second later a knife was buried into the interrogator's throat. Aisha and Sayid came into the cell, and headed to Aladdin who hung his head as he sat tied to his chair.

"Aladdin!" said Sayid as he crouched next to the prisoner, gently raising his head by the chin, "Are you okay?"

Sayid realized how far from being okay Aladdin was when he got a good look at his face, bruised, cut, battered, thin and pale from long weeks of agonizing torture and inhumane treatment.

"Its Sayid, do you remember me? We've come to rescue you."

Aladdin's green eyes looked into Sayid's black one with sadness and despair, and with a shaky voice he said, "Help me.."

* * *

_Gotham City, Maryland_

Priest dialed a number on his cell phone as he saw that they were nearing the Bridge, he waited for the other side to pick up and said,

"Hello? It's Priest... Never mind where I'm calling from, I need you to come pick me up, I'll be in the Narrows, make it quick."

"I told you, we're not going anywhere near the Narrows." said Barbara as she drove the car into the bridge and Priest hung up.

"No," said Priest, putting his cell phone in his pocket, "WE won't."

He lowered the gun he had pointed at Barbara's head for twenty minutes, removed the clip and dropped the unloaded gun on the passenger's seat next to Barbara.

"I know you don't believe me, but I assure you no harm has befallen those women. Be sure to return that to Officer Lopez."  
"Wha-"

Priest opened the door as the car was moving at Seventy miles per hour, then lunged forward with supreme agility, grabbing one of the beams holding up the bridge with one hand to steady himself and standing on the very ledge, he looked up at a police helicopter that shined its spotlight upon him, an amplified voice came from it.

'Judas Priest, you are surrounded, get on the ground face down with your hands behind your head or we'll fire.'

Priest stood balanced on the narrow on the ledge, he let go of the beam and raised both arms up, giving the police helicopter the finger, shouting, "Tell someone who cares."

Priest laughed as he lowered his hands and crouched down, then sprang back up, propelling himself upward, launching himself moon salting through the air, flying backward in an arc and eventually falling. With his arms spread out he plunged into the cold waters and disappeared beneath the surface.

* * *

_Syria_

Aisha got into the getaway car, pulling Aladdin in by the arm; he was also being pushed in by Sayid. Across the distance, one of the snipers on the safe house's roof took a bullet in the head from Almasry who had taken position on the west of the highway, providing cover fire for the other three.

"Almasry, get in!" called Barnes as moved the car onto the highway asphalt, Almasry dropped the rifle and got up, climbed into the passenger's seat before Barnes sped off.

Sayid looked back at the safe house, the remaining Agents ran out of the house and into their cars to peruse them, their vehicles exploded upon ignition killing everybody inside, he sighed in relief as they seemed to be in the clear and only had to rendezvous with the Red October.

* * *

_Gotham City, Maryland_

Mona removed the safety pin on her gun as she saw a figure coming out of an ally, as it approached she realized it was Priest, he got into the passenger seat without saying a word and she drove off.

"You're soaking wet." said Mona.  
"Had a dip."  
"What happened?"  
"There's this girl at the library who I thought I could buy a drink, but found me so repulsive that she called her cop daddy on me. I had to take her hostage and get to the bridge where I jumped into the river; from there I swam to here. That about covers it."

"You know, all this-"  
"All this could've been avoided if had played it cool on the ship, I get it now. Jeez, just lay off, will ya? I'll lay low for a week till everything is quiet again."  
"Will you?"  
"Yeah, got a better idea?"

"I think it's about time you made a run for it?"  
"And go where?"

"New York."  
"New York?"

Mona smiled a sly smile and said, "Yes, New York."

"Well," said Priest as he reclined the seat and closed his eyes, "New York it is, then."

* * *

And so, out two protagonists head for the big apple to lay low for a while, whatever could happen next?

R&R.


	22. New York Minute

**One Day Later**  
_Manhattan, New York_

NYPD Detective Max Payne approached the scene of the crime, holding a warm cup of black coffee as he did. He greeted Detective Miller with a nod and asked him, "What do we got?"

"Routine stick-up, early to mid-thirties Caucasian female came in with a Beretta and asked for the contents of the register, she must not have checked the place first, 'cause she didn't see the victim that came in a minute before her or the other customer. Anyway, the departed either tried to take off or be a hero; she turned around and shot him four times before she took off with the money."

"Witnesses?"  
"Just the clerk, the other customer called 911, but left soon after the perp."

"You called me for this?" asked Detective Payne as he stepped into the store.

"It's not the crime, Max," said Miller as he followed, "It's who got shot; I hear you and him go way back."

The officers stepped away from the body that was on the floor, slumped against the wall with four bullet holes in its chest.

"Is this who I think it is?" asked the Detective.  
"Yep, we found ID on him." replied Miller.

Detective Payne rubbed his chin as he looked at the familiar face, he reached for his wrist to feel a pulse and found none, he leaned so that his ear was next to the victim's nose, there was no breath.

"Max, you insult us. Don't you think we've done all that already?"  
"I once saw this man take a knife in the gut, and I heard about him partying in New Orleans the following month on Mardi Gras."

"Okay, do you think he'll be celebratin' next Mardi Gras, then?"

"No," said Detective Payne stood up and stepped away from the body, taking one last look at it, before heading over to talk to the clerk, "Judas Priest is dead."

* * *

**Twenty-Five Minutes Ago**

Priest staggered back as the first two bullets struck him in the chest, with the third he saw fir to stumble back into the wall, and with the fourth that hurt him the most his legs gave and he slid down to the floor.

She ran out of the 7-11 with the sound of bells, her loot in her hands, from where he sat he could hear her runaway, his mouth filled with blood, his own blood.

The frightened clerk rose from behind the counter, muttering a prayer as he saw the apparently mortally wounded man slumped by the door, while the young customer calmly stood by. Priest spat the blood out as he let his head drop to the side and closed his eyes, all was left was for him to wait.

"Hello. I'm calling from the seven-eleven on 25th and 9th, there's been a robbery, some guy's has been shot."

Priest could hear the calm voice and knew it was not the Clerk; it was the young man of mid-twenties. Next he heard someone approaching, and then the clerk called after him and demanded he remain there. The bells mounted on the door sounded informing him that the other customer didn't oblige to his request.

**

* * *

**

**Thirty Minutes Ago**

St. Jimmy walked into the seven-eleven, feeling a strong hankering for massive quantities of junk food. It was empty at this time to night; the only one present was the clerk who shot him a casual greeting nod before returning to listening to his portable radio.

He walked through the isles, picking up bottles of beer, bags of chips, frozen pizza and other things; he carried them over to the counter where the clerk calculated the cumulative price, before Jimmy realized he had missed some things. He walked to the back as he heard the bells, indicating that someone had just come in. He kept searching for his desired snacks as he heard the bells for the second time, indication that that someone had left or someone else has arrived.

Jimmy thought he glimpsed someone as he moved to another isle, but didn't think of it. He kept searching as he heard a slight commotion in the front of the store followed by the sound of the cash register opening.

"Aha!" said Jimmy as he raised a box of cookies when he heard two consecutive gunshots, followed two seconds later by two individual ones.

Jimmy froze for a couple of seconds before rushing to the front of the store, where he found the cash register open and empty, the clerk ducking behind the register while a man of average build was slumped on the floor against the wall, his chest covered with blood.

The clerk muttered a prayer as he rose, and the man by the door spat out a mouthful of blood onto his own chest, then hung his head to the side and closed his eyes.

Looking over at the frightened clerk, Jimmy decided to step in and aid him; he dropped the box onto the counter then picked up the receiver by the register and dialed a 911, once he heard the sound of an operator, asking how she may help him.

"Hello. I'm calling from the seven-eleven on 25th and 9th, there's been a robbery, some guy's has been shot."  
'Can I have your name?'

Jimmy placed the receiver on the counter and stepped away, heading to the door as the clerk frantically implored him to stay.

* * *

**Now**

Mona's heart fluttered when she saw Max walk into the convenience store, she wasn't expecting to see him for a long time and she certainly wasn't prepared for it. Of all the cops in the City, it was him that answered the call and came to investigate Priest's murder.

She lowered herself at the driver's seat to conceal herself from the cops who might recognize her. She unable to decided what to do, unable to decide if she should stick to the plan, or try and catch him when he was alone, perhaps they could talk, perhaps they could finish saying to each other all the things that were left unsaid when she lay in his arms in that old manor four years ago, as she tethered between life and death, her back bleeding from a gunshot wound. But what if he had different ideas, what if instead of professing what he felt for her he simply arrested her, adding two decades to her sentence and sending her back to prison?

Time flew as she drowned in this spiral of thought, she was so immersed that she almost didn't notice as Priest was loaded in a body bag into a city morgue truck. She pushed those thoughts out of her head as she started the car and drove off, following the truck.

Max had walked out of the store just as she passed by, she looked to the side swiftly, trying to avoid his gaze, almost hitting another car as she did so but managed to stay within her lane, and drove away with curses and car honks in her wake.

* * *

**Three Hours Later**

Mona pulled open a drawer in the morgue's crypt and zipped open the body bag on it, to be met with Priest's expressionless face.

"Are you Okay, Priest?"  
"Who wouldn't I be?" asked Priest as he opened his eyes, "I've only been shot in the chest four times, then shoved in a bag for an hour before I had to lay naked on a slab, for two hours before some clumsy med-student came and performed my autopsy. My wounds had healed by then; I had to open them back up with a scalpel, that was fun. Then of course they stuck me back into the bag and shoved me in a freezer for an hour."

"Quit bitching." said Mona as she handed him a bag, "Get dressed."

Priest sat up and opened the bags, finding some new clothes that he put quickly as Mona pulled in another body covered with a sheet on a gurney.

"This is my replacement? Where'd you get him?"  
"I know some people." said Mona as she pulled the sheet away revealing a man of build and features similar to Priest, "He's a John Doe, no one will come looking for him."

"Sorry, pal," said Priest, addressing the corpse as he lifted it and placed it on the slab, then zipped the body bag with it inside, "I'll toast you a drink on New Year."

* * *

**Three Hours Ago**

Jimmy walked into the cell's apartment, preoccupied by what had just taken place.

"Where's the lager, man?" asked Connor McManus, "Jaysis, Jimmy, what happened to ya?"

"There was a stick-up at the store I went to." said Jimmy as he sat down.

"God, are ya alright?" asked Murphy.  
"I'm fine, but there was another guy who wasn't so lucky. He died."  
"Those thievin' bastard," cursed Murphy, "It isn't enough them steeling people's livelyhoods, they got to be murderin' too. Sometimes I think we should've never joined up with Mason and should have stuck in Boston to clean it all up."

"Ya know we couldn't do that." said Connor, the older brother, "Do ya want to talk about it?"  
"No, I'm okay, I'm just a little shook up."  
"Don't worry about it, Jimmy. We've got somethin' for ya."  
"what is it?"  
"A little bout of robbery." said Murphy.  
"Though it is the kind where we steal from the bad guys, mind you." followed Connor.  
"So what are we stealin'?"


	23. The Boss is Back in Town

**Two Days Later**

_ Gotham City, Maryland_

Priest walked out of his room as he put on a long sleeved T-shirt, while Mona shut the blinds in the living room and turned to look at him.

"Well, how do I look?"

Mona looked at him up and down. Upon their return from New York, they had decided that simply faking Priest's death wasn't enough; he'd have to assume a different identity while they were in Nemo's employ. Priest had shaved off his stringy beard, cut his long hair short and dyed it auburn red.

"Kind of Irish." said Mona with a smile.

"Hurm. That's not so bad, I guess."

"You are Irish, though, right?" asked Mona as she headed into her room, leaving the door open.

"Scottish, actually. From Glenfinnian." replied Priest as he dropped to the couch and pressed a button on the remote to turn on the TV, "You?"

"Dad was Italian, Mom was German-Irish." said Mona as she walked out of her room and into the bathroom, holding a bathrobe, "I'm taking a shower, knock on the door if Nemo calls."

Twenty Minutes Later...

Mona stepped out of her room, tying her hair into a ponytail as she often did, heading towards the couch when she noticed Priest's absence. Her fuming with anger didn't last long as the apartment door opened and Priest walked in with a paper.

"Where were you, Priest? Nemo could've called."

"Keep you pants on, I just went to get a bottle from downstairs, I wasn't gone longer than two minutes." said Priest as he took a bottle of Bourbon out of the paper bag.

"Downstairs?"

"Yeah, after I got my head straight when I came back from Baltimore, I thought that I might be better off if I kept a steady supply of booze and blood, luckily I found an old fridge in one of the apartments in the floor below us; managed to fix it and hooked it up. Care for a drink?"

"No thanks." said Mona, rolling her eyes as she turned on the television to the Six O'Clock News.

'...criminal known as the Riddler has been finally caught by the Gotham City Police Department, rumors regarding his arrest suggest that the Bat-Man may have lent a helping hand, Police Commissioner Gillian Loeb had to this to sa-'

Mona grunted as she pressed the off button and tossed the remote aside, "I hate this city."

"Are you kidding me? It's like New York, only it has a crazy bastard who dresses up like a goddamn Bat and beats up hoods and psychotic clowns." said Priest as he poured the bourbon into two glasses, "It's brilliant."

"Cheers." said Priest as he handed her one of the glasses.

"Didn't I say I did not want a drink?"

"Oh come on, have a drink, make an old man happy. It is after all a special occasion. We've now been operating for a month."

"Umm, Priest? It's been Forty days."

A genuinely confused look crossed Priest's face, "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Well, Forty Days are better than Thirty."

Mona sipped from her drink while looking at Priest out the corer of her eye, "Are you Okay?"

"I've been better, but then again I've been worse."

"Okay, what's going on? Why the sudden need to throw back a drink? We've did nothing but work and trade verbal barbs since we've met."

"Thought it was due, is all. As you said, we've been doing Nemo's grunt work for all this time and we barely know each other."

"We know all we need to know; you drink blood and smuggle drugs, I shoot people."

"Yes, but do you enjoy killing people? How has killing people affected your past relationships? Who the hell is Max?"

"What?"

"Come On! You were moaning his name in your sleep a few weeks ago and you accidentally called me Max last night."

"You know what, Priest? One day, when we quit or Nemo lets us off the hook, maybe I'll tell you, but for the time being, you don't get to know who he is."

"Aha! So he is a he, ex-Boyfriend, right?"

"Priest!" shouted Mona in objection.

"Fine, I'm backing off."

"How would you like it if I hounded you with questions? You wouldn't like it, would you?"

"Why wouldn't I? Go ahead, ask away."

Mona paused for a moment, thinking about where to better stick her nose in.

"You say you worked for the D.R.I., What the Hell is That?!"

"Demon's Research Initiative." said Priest as he took a sip of his drink

"Come Again?"

"During world war two, Nazi Germany had an occult program to aid them in the war effort. The U.S. Government set up a few similar counter-programs, one of which was the D.R.I., they hired me as a part of it. After the War was over they kept me to assist in certain sticky situations."

"What, did you see action, then?"

"Sure."

"Where?"

" Germany, France, Belgium during the World War."

" Korea?"

"Yep."

" Vietnam?"

"Yeah, for a couple of hours anyway."

"So why did you quit?"

Priest took a sip of his bourbon but didn't answer, and Mona went on, "And a more pressing question, why don't you drink blood from people? I mean you drank from one of those guys on the ship, but most of the time you drink days old animal blood."

Priest turned his head to her, he stared into her eyes coldly for a moment before gulping the entire contents of his glass, then wiped his mouth with his sleeve, saying, "You were right, this was a bad idea."

He stood up, picked up the bottle of Bourbon and an empty glass and walked to his room slowly, saying, "I'm going to my room and I'm kill this entire bottle, don't bother me."

* * *

**The Following Day**

"Did you hear anything?" asked Gowen as he sat behind his desk.

"No," said Mandy as she sat down in the Banker's office, "Why?"

"I thought I heard something. Forget about it."

**----------------------------------------------------------------------------**

In the office building across the street, Mona and Priest had set themselves up in en empty office.

Mona closed the window and placed the sniper rifle on the ground leaning against the roof-to-floor windows.

"What was that for?" asked Priest as he sat on the ground by the door, leaning against the wall, out of the sunlight and looking into Gowen's office through a pair of binoculars.

"I fired a spy bullet at the window frame, we'll be able to hear what they say for the next couple of hours."

Mona leaned down to press a button on the receiver, and Gowen and Mandy's voices came through the speakers, she then picked up a camera.

'...thought I heard something, forget about it.'

"Who's the chick?" asked Priest, "Caucasian, Brunette, about Twenty-Nine years old, Ninety pounds, Five-foot-Three. Kinda Cute."

"You know Priest, you have your disgusting moments." said Mona as she looked through her camera, zooming in on the woman's face and taking several pictures.

"I am as God made me."

'You must understand, Miss Hughes, I can't pass this much money every month through the bank and assure you it won't get noticed...'

'We have an understanding with the Chairman..'

"Hughes." repeated Priest, "Guess that makes her 'M.H.'."

**----------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

**One Hundred Minutes Later**

"She's leavin'." said Priest.

Mona loaded a bullet into the rifle and handed it to Priest, "The D.R.I., did they train you to use one of these?"

"Yep." said Priest as he took the rifle.

"When she gets out of the building, I want you to fire one at the car she gets into. Then you contact me and tell me which is her car so I can tail her. I'll take our car, so you will have to wrap up our gear and take it back to the Apartment."

"You got it."

"And try not to get picked up by cops, the mob or strange men with candy."

"Fuck you."

Mona smiled smugly as she stuck her gun into her holster and put on her jacket before leaving through the door.

**----------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

**Later That Day**

"You've faked you death?" asked Nemo as he took a look around the apartment kitchen, which was rife with dirty and broken dishes, endless boxes of takeout and some small vermin.

"Yeah," said Priest as he took a gulp of warm cow blood, "Figured it was for the best. Hope that's okay and all."

"I think it was the best solution, I have faked my death several times myself. Though never as convincingly as you have."

"Yeah, to tell you the truth, it was all Mona's idea. The damn dye job too." said Priest as he clutched a lock of his red hair, "She's kind of a smart ass, the good kind, though."

"So tell me," said Nemo as he headed over to the living room where Priest sat, and sat on an armchair directly opposite to him, "What do you think of Miss Sax?"

"Smart, Sneaky, knows her stuff. A bit too Femme Fatale at times."

"Do you trust her?"

Priest smiled smugly as he set the glass lf blood on the coffee table, "That's the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn't it? Who to trust."

"Well, do you?"

" I let her fire four bullets into me, If they were silver then I wouldn't have been here. What does that tell you?"

Just then, they heard the door's lock open and the knob turn, Mona walked into the apartment, taking off her jacket when Priest gleefully said, "Mona, look who decided to blow into town."

Mona was certainly surprised to see Nemo, she didn't even close the door behind her as she walked forward, asking, "Captain, is anything wrong?"

"No, not at all. How have you been, Miss Sax?"

"Alright... What are you doing here?"

"The good Captain thinks that being udermanned as we are, he can lend us a hand." said Priest as he picked the glass of blood back up and drank from it.

"That is correct, I will be staying with you for the time being."

"And the Yellow Submarine?"

"Sergeant Pepper will be manning it, it needs to undergo some routine repairs in a distant location."

"Ain't that peachy?" asked Priest with an exaggerated grin and gulped the contents of his glass.


	24. Breaking and Entering

Hello, dear readers. The story is winding down, well, the first Act is anyway, by Chapter 30 we'll find out who Josephine is and after that Project Phoenix will be the center of the story, and believe me when I say its nothing you could ever think off... well, that's not true, a lot of people could think of it, but anyway.

Oh, and instead od describing how the characters look everynow and then, I'm given you visual ades, they are at the url below, they're pictures of the main characters introduced thus far:

http://www-flickr-com/photos/58996083N00/sets/72157600879828789/

just replace the dashes with dots.

* * *

_Gotham City__, Maryland_

Mona and Nemo stood on the building's roof in the afternoon, looking at the Novick building in the distance, basking in the warmness of a rare sunny afternoon in the usually cold city.

"What is it you wanted to talk about?" asked Mona as she sat on the broken wooden bench next to Nemo.

"Priest." said Nemo as he leaned against the wall in the same manner, "You two have been partners for a month and a half now, what do you think of him?"

"I'm not sure this is something I want to talk about."

"Miss Sax, this is a tight operation that I'm running. From where I'm standing, I feel that Priest has done a rather poor job, and I need your perspective."

"I'm not sure, Priest is... complicated."

"Complicated?"

"I know, he acts like and hick and talks like a hick and gets on my nerves as often as he can manage. But sometimes it all seems like an act. I know he botched up the job on the ship so bad that we had to fake his death to clear everything up. I think he may have botched it up by choice, I mean take the job he did for the mafia boss in Baltimore. Of what I hear he was in and out like a ghost."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that Priest may be seriously disturbed, Or he just be an adrenaline junky."

"You'll be surprised at how those two traits often go hand in hand."

"And another thing, he doesn't trust you."

"Why?"

"He gets tired of all the secrecy. He said he didn't like being kept in the dark."

"Given his background, I must say I'm quite surprised."

"What do you know about him?" asked Mona.

"Regarding?"

"You said that we were on the red list, a list of people the League was interested in recruiting. That must have been so for a reason, right? What is Priest's background?"

"He hasn't told you?" asked Nemo.

"He told me what the D.R.I. was and when I asked some more, he got depressed and spent the night drinking."

"Well then, you know that Priest was recruited by the Initiative in the forties to assist in the occult war against Germany's various paranormal projects, in the capacity of a Black-Ops Agent."

"Priest was a secret Agent?"

"Precisely. After the war, the Government Top Brass decided to keep Priest on staff, calling him in to assist in various capacities. His missions included acting as a Special Operations officer during the Korean war, and when he wasn't involved in combat, he was being lent to the CIA or MI6, acting as a spy stealing intelligence from the vaults on the KGB during the cold war, and even as an assassin, particularly one afternoon in Dallas..."

"You're saying that Priest had something to do with JFK's assassination?!"

"No," chuckled Nemo, "I'm just having a little joke on your expense. Heheh. Sorry, No, he had nothing to do with it, as far as I'm aware of anyway."

Mona rolled her eyed, "What happen then? How did Priest go from Secret Agent to Criminal?"

"In 1968 the Initiative ordered him to head to Vietnam, and he obeyed, as always. Only when he got there, he disappeared, deserted. By 1969, he was spotted, in California, traveling with Hippie communes. The Mid eighties marked his foray into organized crime. The rest as they say is history."

"So, why did he?"

"His files indicate that during the Korean war, he had met a young man named Frank Lee, and that the two became close, perhaps _intimate_. At one point, Private Lee fell behind enemy lines and upon learning of this, Priest broke orders and ventured into enemy territory to rescue him. It is said that they lived together after the war, when Priest wasn't on Initiative missions. Lee died in 1967, two months before Priest was ordered to go to Vietnam. Perhaps the departure of his friend caused emotional turmoil that drove him to desert. However, if you dig deeper, you'll notice that his disappearance happened soon after the Initiative changed its director. So who knows?"

* * *

_Cairo__, Egypt_

"How is Aladdin doing?" asked Barnes as he looked upon the computer's screen at General Raimus who took a moment before answering.

"Still catatonic, he has agreed to eat. But refuses to speak to any of my crew and will barely allow my Chief medic to touch him."

"Of course he isn't talking to you, Aladdin belongs with us. We're his crew, he's been dealing with us for the past year, in his fragile mind he can't distinguish you from the League, he might think this is just another of their head games and that we never did come for him."

"You've said it yourself, Mr. Sane has endured ninety days of the most grueling torture, both physical and psychological, his psyche is by now scarred, he needs to be watched for he might be a danger to himself and others-"

"Being with us will help him."

"I doubt it, Colonel. Let's face it, between Miss Fadhil, whom you described as a sociopath, Major Almasry with his mummy like demeanor and Lieutenant Jarrah, a torturer not unlike Aladdin's oppressors, I doubt they'd help."

"I doesn't matter, I want to see him."

Raimus paused for a second.

"Agreed. We will arrive at Alexandria within the next few days, you can come aboard the Red October and spend a day, but only you."

"Fine."

"Good day, Colonel."

* * *

_Gotham City__, Maryland_

"Meet Mandy Hughes," said Nemo as he stepped away from the computer in the apartment, which displayed Mandy's records, "Born Rachel Kirshner, recruited at the age of Nineteen into the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Felix Leiter, head of the New York Branch of the League. Your discovery links to some other bits of evidence we had collected over the years, I now believe that this woman is in Josephine's inner circle, possibly her personal assistant."

"That's what we we've been saying, Cap'n." said Priest as he paced, "I'm assuming we're going to be breakin' and enterin'?"

"In two days' time."

"Why not right now?"

"I'm not going to break down the door or a high ranking League official because I'm anxious, from now on, we take everything slow."

* * *

**Two Nights Ago**

Two men stood atop the Gotham Police Department 15th precinct's building, by a massive spotlight that was turned off at the moment.

"What is it, Lieutenant?" asked the first man with an almost demonic gravely voice as he moved silently, his black, cloaked body almost invisible.

"It's Captain, Actually."

"Congratulations are now in order."

"Thanks, but that's not why I've called you. Did you hear about the ship loaded with immigrants from a couple of weeks ago?"

"Yes, you found the man who did it, but he took your niece hostage. How is Miss Gordon?"

"She's alright. They found him, Judas Priest, the guy who did it."

"That's good news."

"Not exactly. After he got away he made it to New York, where he was gunned down during a regular stickup. He's dead now."

"Are you sure? I've heard that he had survived previous near deaths."

"Positive, Detecive Max Payne of the NYPD talked to me personally, he checked the vitals himself and watched as they carted him off to the city morgue. He's gone to meet the big guy downstairs, and he's taken the location of those women with him. We gotta find these women, we have to save them."

The tall figure nodded its pointy eared head, and said, "I'll see what I can do."

And with that he jumped off the roof, transforming his cloak into wings as he soared below and away.

* * *

**Now**

_Soho, London_

Mernae walked between rows of empty seats in the nearly vacant movie theatre, eventually sitting in the seat next to Harmony who was hurling handfuls of butter coated popcorn into her mouth.

"_'llo_." said Mernae, "Sorry I'm late."

"Its okay, the movie's already started; Looks interesting."

"I've seen it, it's rubbish. Mind if I...?"

"Help yourself." said Harmony as she offered her the bucket of popcorn.

"Thanks. So, what's new?"

"Nothing much, we've had this little argument the other day."

"What? About what?"

"Me calling him James in and around the office."

"Oh, that's no so terrible. My grasp on the male psyche tells me he probably likes it, he wants his younger peons to know he can still have a woman like you."

"Men!"

"Still, always do as he says, and try to remain on his good side. Anything else?"

"He's spending the rest of the week with his wife. Did you know he was married?"

"Of course we knew, a man like him needs a wife so that he displays an air of stability."

"Well, that's all I know."

"It's not good enough. You'll have to keep your eyes and ears at all times. We can use any bit of information you can give us, however insignificant."

"Okay, I'll start taking notes."

"No! There will be no taking on notes! You can never create any evidence of you working for the opposition. Just try to use your memory."

"Gotcha."

* * *

**Two Days Later**

"You don't trust me, do you?" asked Priest as he stood by Nemo as he attempted to bypass security at the backdoor Mandy Hughe's building.

"I have no idea what you mean." said Nemo as he got the door open and walked through it.

"This." said Priest as he followed Nemo in, "You brining me along instead of Mona, to keep an eye on me at all time, cause you don't trust me not to fuck up keeping look out."

"Priest, you are making no sense. Stick to the wall."

Both men stuck to the wall to keep out of the range of the security cameras, once they had turned away they were able to move along to a door with a keypad by it, Nemo pressed the door and a green light turned on, allowing them into the service elevator.

"Whatever, man. I just hope I get paid soon."

"Is this what it's all about? Thinking old Captain Nemo is going to withhold payment?"

"Are you?"

"I'll pay you right now If you'll take a check."

"Funny, let's just get going."

* * *

R&R. Somedays your reviews are all the keeps me alive. 


	25. Five Years

**Now**

_Gotham City, Maryland_

"Try not to move anything." said Nemo as he and Priest stood inside Mandy's loft.

"She's bound to find out we were here anyway." said Priest grimly as he looked around.

"If that were true, it would have made all the precautions pointless, wouldn't it? Look, league officials rely on their anonymity being intact to protect themselves, finding out who they are is the hard part."

"Okay, so, when we find out who Josephine is, what are you going to do? Kill her?"

"And waste a lot of effort learning who her successor is? No. Know thy enemy, Mister Priest, that's he key."

"Whatever, boss. What are we supposed to be looking for?"

"Any clues regarding Hughes and Josephine's relatioship."

"Care to narrow it down?"

"I brought you here for a purpose, Priest," quipped Nemo who was running out of patience, "You used to be a spy, didn't you? Employ some of your experience."

"Fine, you don't have to yell." said Priest as he stepped away from Nemo, heading to a different part of the apartment.

Nemo went to work on the walls and furniture, looking for hidden compartments, while Priest stood at the bedroom's doorstep, scanning it with a lack of interest. There was something about it that sounded a bell within him, but he couldn't place it, after a few seconds of consideration, he realized it was the smell rather than the sight. He closed his eyes and took a big whiff, held it within his rarely used lungs and analyzed the aroma.

Priest exhaled and cracked half a smile, before advancing in and carefully opening the closet, he shut it and went to the dresser, he opened the top drawer and took a look; there was nothing of interest but some underwear and an Uzi.

He stepped out of the bedroom and into the bathroom, opened the medicine cabinet and took a look at the jars of medicine and feminine products that were stacked on the tiny shelves; there were some bottles of aspirin, painkillers, sleeping pills among an assortment of other drugs, some illegal, there was also a bag of cotton balls that Priest, despite having lived for hundreds of years during which he knew many women, never found the use of those cotton balls. He closed the cabinet and stepped out of the bathroom and into the living room.

"Did you check her speed dial?" asked Priest as he stood by a table behind her sofa on which the phone rested next to a bowl that Priest dug into with a couple of fingers, it was filled with those things one inevitably finds in one's pockets upon returning home; spare change, pieces of gum, a matchbox and so on.

"I have, nothing useful." answered Nemo, "Just a few restaurants, the super, her dry cleaners. The League needs to have direct contact with all employees, so they employ cell phones mostly."

"Did you find anything?"

"She's in a relationship, with a woman possibly." said Priest as he headed into the open kitchen opened the fridge to peek in, "What kinds of restaurants?

"Pizza parlors and Chinese takeout, what do you mean she's in a relationship with a woman?"

"Well, you see, Nemo; when young boys and young girls grow up, they start to have certain ideas about each other, and sometimes the boys have them about their own about boys and girls have them about girls, sometimes boys and girls have ideas about both boys AND gi-"

"Priest."

"Okay okay," said Priest as he looked at the shelves of the fridge, illuminated by a the yellow light coming from a bulb, which were mostly empty except for some light beer and a bag of raw lamb chops, "I couldn't find any birth control, the bedroom didn't smell too saintly, if you follow my drift. In the bathroom, there was two toothbrushes, but not razors, now I know what you're thinking, maybe it's a man who is steril and grown a beard. But I found this."

Priest closed the fridge and tossed a matchbox at Nemo who caught it and looked at it, it was a small red matchbox, custom made for an establishment, the logo on it was in black and white and it read 'Anactoria'.

"'Anactoria'." said Priest, "Ever heard of Sapho? Ancient Greek poet who lived on the island of Lesbos, which is where the words 'Saphist' and 'Lesbian' come from, she wrote love poems directed at some women, including one maiden by the name of Anactoria, who some believe was her lover. That matchbox came from a lesbian bar."

"I don't know what to say, Priest. That's rather useless, but I wouldn't mind you using more and more of your powers of observation rather than your patented Punch-Kick-Lunge-for-the-neck method."

"Don't count on it."

Nemo tossed the matchbox back into the bowl and kneeled down to look under the couch, finding nothing he went to search between the cushions, eventually finding a black leather-bound planner, he opened it and placed it on the coffee table, then started taking pictures of the pages with a camera he had.

"This, however, may prove to be extremely valuable."

"Kudos, I'll bake you a cake."

* * *

_Melbourne, Australia_

George Costas smiled out of the left corner of his mouth, as he straightened his coat and looked at the man that lay in a heap on the ground, covered with tiny shards of glass from the shattered bottle which's neck was still in Costas' hands. The man on the floor started to stir so Costas tossed the bottle neck aside, then reached into his coat and took out a sawn-off shotgun which he aimed at the fallen man's head.

"This didn't have to happen," said Costas in a Greek accent, "But I'm glad it did. It's been a long time since I've given a man a face full of bottle. I felt nice."

The man on the floor looked at Costas angrily, and then turned to look at his boss who was being approached by a tall menacing man of fifty, wearing a long black coat.

"Your gun, two fingers." Ordered Costas.

The man on the floor reached slowly into his jacket and took out his pistol, holding it from the handle with his thumb and index fingers then tossed it away.

"Sit down." said the tall man in the black coat.

"Please," said the boss, a man of advanced age as he stumbled back onto his seat, "We can work out a deal."

"Oh, you better believe me when I say we **will**." said the man in the black coat in a British West county accent, "We had an accord, Mister Litton, we agreed that you would give us the location of the sunken vessel and I would have the valuables lifted, and we'd split the loot fifty-five\forty-five. You were there, right?"

"Yes.. I.."

"When was it that we agreed that after I had my men meet you at our rendezvous point that you'd steal my share and try to blow up my men?"

"P..please..."

"I'll tell you when, it was Never. We made no such agreement, but you did it. Now, you have two choices, either I kill you and spend some time looking for the money. Or, you live and give me the money."

"Yes, yes! Whatever you say! You can have the money."

"All of it?"

"What?"

"By the money, I assume you mean all thirty-nine million euros, correct?"

"But..."

"You can either keep the money or walk away, you can't do both. "

"Yes. You can take the money, all of it! Just please, don't kill me."

"Good," said the man wryly, "Cough up the dosh."

"It's in the safe."

He took out a gun and aimed it at the already frightened Litton, and said, "Remember, I'm immortal. Do don't do anything... stupid."

Within a few minutes, Litton was handing his former associate a suitcase filled with money and small pouches of diamonds.

"For what it's worth," said Litton, "I'm sorry I've crossed you."

Hector Barbossa smiled warmly before shooting Litton in the kneecap. Litton buckled to the floor, screaming bloody murder and holding the lower part of his thigh, as Costas smashed the heel of his boot into the bodyguard's face, knocking him out.

"When I aid you could walk away, I was really taking the piss." said Barbossa as he headed to leave Litton's office as he slipped the gun back into his coat, Costas caught up with him as he hid his own weapon.

"To the Submarine, Captain?" asked Costas.

"The Black Pearl can wait, I'm in a mood for a drink. After all, I'ts ot everyday that I become a millionare."

"I could go for a Rum and Coke."

"Rum and Coke? Why, that's so passe, Mister Costas."

* * *

**One Day Later**

_Alexandria, Egypt_

A uniformed seaman allowed Barnes into one of the sleeping quarters aboard the Red October, the door was shut behind him as Bond stepped in to look at the small room's only occupant.

Aladdin Sane was a man of his late twenties, tall and thin, olive skinned and sandy blonde haired, the son of a Palestinian mother and a Welsh father was a private investigator and a former student of political science. In recent years he had been investigating the assassination of a leading politician that he admired, his investigation were met by much hardship and obstacles, at time he faced the threat of death if he didn't stop, but he soldiered on, determined that the truth had to be fought for by tooth and nail.

He eventually learned of the league, and how they orchestrated the demise of the politician, finding him too popular, unpredictable and likely to cause complication that didn't best suit their designs.

That was when General Raimus came knocking on his door, and introduced him to Robert Barnes, a former US army Colonel and former CIA Agent working in various Middle Eastern countries over the years. They were the first members of the Cairo cell of the movement dedicated to disrupt the League's operations.

It was a little over three months ago that Aladdin had split away from the Cell when they were in Yemen attempting to foil an arms deal between the League ands Insurgents, he said in a phone call that he was investigating a major lead on his own and claimed that it would make all the difference, that was the last they heard of him for some time. Two weeks later he contacted them asking them to meet him in Jordan, claiming that he has made an amazing discovery. When they got there, they learned through local contacts that he was apprehended by the League.

They tore through he country looking for him, but Raimus ordered them to return to Cairo and that Sane had acted on his own and thus had dug his own grave. They complied with his demands, but continued to search for him and learned a little over a month ago that he was being held in Syria. The rest was History.

Aladdin Sane was sitting on the floor by the wall opposite to the door, facing Barnes and hugging his folded legs to his body. Barnes took a look around the room and saw that his food was merely picked at and that the bed has not been slept it for some time.

"Hi, Aladdin," said Barnes as went to sit on a chair by the younger man, "Remember me? It's Bob, Bob Barnes. We worked together."

"This is just another one of your tricks," said Aladdin as he hung his head, "You're not here, or maybe you are but you are not yourself. A hallucinogen in my food, to make me see things."

"Aladdin, you've been saved. We took you out."

"Lies, I'll never tell you anything!"

Aladdin lunged at Barnes, yelling, "I'll die before I tell you anything!"

Barnes quickly got up, ducking out of Aladdin's reach and grabbing him in a full nelson.

"You're name is..." whispered Barnes into Aladdin's ear as he raved, "Is Aladdin Sane."

Aladdin thrashed as he tried to escape Barnes' hold.

"Your favorite Artist is Salvadore Dali, your favorite musician is David Bowie and your favorite poet is Nizar Qabani."

"Let me go you filthy bastard!"

"You have a woman in Beirut, her name is Najlaa and she's a teacher."

Aladdin started to sob as he was overcome with emotion, unsure whether or not he was saved.

"You and Aisha don't get along very well, and on some nights you play chess with Almasry, trying to get him to talk, the only time you managed to do it is when he scolded you for taking to long to make a move."

Aladdin stopped his thrashing and quieted down, Barnes let go of him and lay him on the bed.

"Your name is Aladdin Sane," said Barnes, "My name is Robert Barnes, I was your friend. I AM your friend."

Aladdin sobbed silently as he sat up on the bed, holding his head in his hands. Barnes knew his friend wasn't about to start talking, and he couldn't find it in his heart to press any harder, so he simply turned around and headed to the door.

"I'll come by latter, Okay Al?"

"Five years."

Barnes froze in his place as he heard those two words, and contemplated if he really heard them or not. He turned around slowly to look at Aladdin still in his same position, shaking slightly and holding his head in his hands.

"Five years? Did you say Five year? You did, didn't you?"

Barnes went and sat right next to him, asking, "What do you mean? Five years what?"

"Five years," said Aladdin with a shaky voice, "We've got Five years... Before... the world... will end."

* * *

Boot, hope you liked your apperance, It won't be the last.

Keep those Reviews coming.


	26. No One Lives Forever

**1945 **

"BASTARDS!!!"

Nemo hurled his turban into the storming ocean in furry, then shouted the foulest obscenities in Urdu that not even the thundering skies could muffle, he raised his fists swearing terrible vengeance, he cursed and shouted and screamed till his throat was sore and his head went light, and he had to calm down and sit on the shore as the waters washed up at his feet.

He took off his boots and his heavy blue coat, then rolled up the bottom of his pants, as he recollected the events that led him to this god forsaken uninhabited island.

Since the Martian Invasion was over, he had roamed the seas, having resigned the League and finding himself under no one's command, once again. He had given the League little thought ever since, and vowed never to concern himself with the matters of the surface world again.

The Great War broke out, and he remained neutral during it, despite aiding the oppressed every now and then, he remained uninvolved in the whole. It ended and he could continue doing what he loved doing best, exploring every cubic inch between the surface and the bottom of the ocean.

But then the world went to war again, with a mad man emerging in Germany determined on conquering the globe and establishing hegemonic domination over it, discarding all those he deemed unworthy in the process, or forcing them into slavery, it was only a matter of time till he advanced across Asia and made their way to India. So when the British government contacted him, asking for his services, not to serve the crown, but humankind, he didn't hesitate and accepted.

By then, Serpentine Park was name after Hyde, in recognition of his sacrifice, Tom and Mina had resigned the League, Campion Bond had retired, Mycroft Holmes had passes away and MI-6 was now headed by a man known as Cummings. Nemo designed some weapons and watercrafts for their use, though none was as advanced as the Nautilus, while engaging German ships and submarine in combat in the Atlantic.

At John Bull's behest, he had allowed a company of British Seamen onto his Nautilus; they were able sailors but constantly expressed their opinions regarding serving under and alongside 'colonials'. Nemo long wondered why they had requested those men to join them when his crew could handle everything well by themselves, and learned the horrible truth four days ago.

The British government could not tolerate having a man such as Nemo; unpredictable and uncontrollable, roaming the seas in the world's most advanced and deadly Watercraft. The company of sailors were demolitionists; they had rigged the submarine to explode when the war was won and Nemo had outlived his usefulness, and escaped aboard his exploration pods, minutes before the explosive charges they left behind detonated.

Unlike the aftermath of Dorian Gray's betrayal, there was no mutated scientists running around the save the day, the bomb fulfilled their purpose; the explosion itself killed half the crew, nearly half of who remained were trapped in submerged chambers and drowned, while the remaining tried to control the ship to no avail.

He had remained in the bridge the whole time, determined to steer it to surface or go down with his lady, he remembered the floor rocking beneath him, the cold water rising below his ankles, the walls breaching and spraying water with such speed and power that those who were hit by it were sent slamming into the iron walls. He was still trying to steer his way to the surface when the electricity died and the darkness hit, with what little light there was left he could see his men around him, in the water that surrounded them, floating like pixies.

The next thing he knew, he was gasping for air on the surface, hanging on to a big piece of wreckage, how was it possible, he could not fathom. The current dragged him to the island where he had spent three days, calm as ever, till his rage overcame he and his little outburst occurred. It was all over, the island was uninhibited and didn't seem to be within any shipping lanes; he was stuck there for all eternity, with nothing to do but go mad.

Nemo sighed as he stood up and headed into the jungle to look for food.

* * *

**Now **

_Crawley__, England_

Boothroyd stepped behind a thick pane of bulletproof glass as he looked at the tank and contraption inside it that he and his apprentice had spent two days assembling.

"Alright, Algernon," said Boothroyd, "It's time."

Boothroyd's apprentice Igor Algernon moved away and put on a pair of protective goggles and stood next to a switch on the wall.

"Now! Pull the switch, Igor!"

Algernon pulled the switch, sending hundreds of volts of electricity through a thick coaxial cable that ran from the wall to the device, the device started to sound loudly, like a jet engine starting up, an aura of green light started to grow from within it, taking he shape of a perfect sphere at first, it grew steadily and slowly at first, but just as a smile started to form on Boothroyd's lips, the aura started turning red and changing shape, turning into a rapidly shifting blob.

"Oh dear..." said Boothroyd after the contraption blew up and the electricity in the warehouse died.

"Are you alright, Sir?" came Algernon's voice through the darkness, "Do you smell that?"

" I'm fine." said Boothroyd, "I do smell that, I'm afraid the device has been fried."

"Hmmmm. Does this mean we're going to spend the night reverse-engineering it and figuring out what we did wrong?"

"Yes."

"Oh, goody!"

* * *

_Gotham City__, Maryland_

Nemo viewed various reports on two separate computer screens, they detailed the background of Mandy Hughes as well as her credit card records and some other information dug up by the intelligence wrong of the opposition. Priest meanwhile was slumped on the couch, with his feet raised on the coffee table and his cowboy hat slouched on his face, apparently taking a nap.

The door opened and Mona came in, nodding at Nemo as she took off her jacket, Nemo nodded back.

"So, what's the news? You've been digging up info for a couple of days now."

"We have a plan." said Nemo, "We're sending you tomorrow undercover."

"As a Lesbian, no less."

Nemo turned to glare at Priest, who turned to be not sleeping at all, though he maintained his position on the sofa.

"So, you're awake. Care you join us?" asked Nemo.

"Nah, I'm good." said Priest.

"Nemo, what is he talking about?"

"We've learned that Hughes frequents a Lesbian night club. We think that we can get as close as possible to her in such a social setting."

"Plus, I personally found it funny." said Priest from under his hat."

Nemo rolled his eyes, while Mona asked, "Get close enough to do what?"

"Plant a bug in her cellphone. If this makes you... uncomfortable-"

"What the hell," said Mona with a shrug, "I'll do it."

"Yay!"

* * *

_London__, England_

Catherine Archer-Bond was a woman of sixty-seven though she appeared younger, thin, with smooth silver hair and a fair complexion, by all accounts she was a beautiful woman, both in her youth and in the twilight years of her life, so beautiful in fact, that she had managed to do what an insurmountable number of exotic women could not manage to do, she swayed James Bond into monogamy, for some time at least.

Cate shifted slightly in her seat, accidentally bumping into Michael Costas, her husband's bodyguard, and unconsciously recollected her life and times that had led her here.

She was born in Scotland, as a daughter to wealthy parents, at birth her mother died, at nine her father returned from a refreshing afternoon of fox hunting, kissed her on the cheek on the way to his bedroom, where he sat on a rocking chair with a hunting rifle in his hands and killed himself. At fourteen she escaped the orphanage and began her career of crime as the Fox; an infamous thief, at twenty one she crossed paths with Agent Bruno Lawrie, who recruited her into the Covert Anti-Terrorist UN sponsored organization knows as UNITY. By 1970, she was transferred to British Intelligence, where she met Commander James Bond, a living legend, both at being a ladykiller and a spy.

Having encountered much misogynistic treatment while at UNITY, she strongly rebuffed his advances, tried to keep it professional. At first he merely wanted her body, just another trophy for the collection, but there was something different about her. The two of them were alike, they were kindred spirits. The inevitable happened and they fell in love, they got married when the cold war was over and won. That was several years ago.

She looked behind her and saw Miss Harmony Kendell, her husband's new personal assistant, or sexual plaything as she was in reality, though James had made pathetic attempts at hiding that from her, and she had sadly pretended she was actually fooled, as they always did. It was a game they had been laying for the last fifteen years.

She looked at her in disdain, and wondered what did he see in her. Cate stifled a sigh as she felt a cloud of depression fill her; she would be carried to sleep at night by various spirits and sleeping pills if it came to it.

'The Bastard,' she though, after I'd given him the best years of my life, saved him in the field and stood at his side as he recovered from numerous injuries, this was what it had come to it; him brining his young tight chippy to an occasion where she alone deserved to stand at his side.

She tried to forget it all, focusing on the good times, long gone, such as when she stood kissing him under the moonlight, as their speedboat raced away from a Russian frigate that exploded as the bombs they had planted detonated. Those were the days she wanted to remember. She kept those memories strong in her mind as she looked at James as he kneeled before the Queen of England, her sword tapping his shoulders.

* * *

R&R. Also, the flickr page has been updated, go back a chapter or two to see the url. 


	27. Anactoria

**1947 **

Nemo stepped out of his hut on the beach early at dawn, feeling in a rather good mood as it hadn't rained for a week, indicating that winter had ended, and with it all the flooding and hardships that came with it. He walked over to the edge of the jungle, where the fresh water system he had installed ended, it was made of hundred of interconnected hollowed bamboos that delivered water from a river one kilometer into the jungle. He turned the wooden valve and the water poured out and washed and drank before turning the valve so the water stopped pouring out.

Something suddenly caught Nemo's attention; it was something on the other side of the beach, a great black heap that wasn't there when he went to sleep last night. He picked up a one of the spears he used for hunting and went to investigate, thinking it was perhaps a beached dead whale.

Upon approaching it, he realized it was a shipwrecked Galleon, one that seemed to be a hundred years removed from its natural place in history. It had black sale, a broken mast and a breached hull, whatever it was, whoever it belonged to, it was not going to be leaving anytime soon.

Nemo noticed what was hanging from the broken mask, it was a black flag with a white skull and crossed bones; a jolly roger. It was a pirate ship, and the pressing question was, where were the pirates?

There was a bang, quickly followed by two consecutive others, Nemo looked to the side to see a long lock of black hair. He looked down at the massive body of hair that hung from his chin and covered his chest to see that a chunk of it had been blown off, a truly odd event.

Nemo looked to his left to see a man staggering toward him, holding a bottle in one hand and a service pistol in the other, one that he was firing at Nemo, and rather poorly.

"Get awa' from meh, ye savage!" yelled the man in a barely tangible English, which was partly due to his accent and partly due to him being obviously drunk. Nemo knew that with his dark skin, massive amounts of hair, his lack of clothing -baring the tattered remains of his trousers- due to his uniform being shred to bits over the years as well as the spear that he held, it was easy for the man to think he was a native to this island and view him as a threat. The man, however, had a gun, and as thus was a threat to Nemo.

"You think yer a match fer Hectar Baa'bossa?" said the man as he tried to aim at Nemo more steadily, having come within very close distance and increasing his chances of making a kill shot. Nemo chucked the spear at the drunken pirate's pistol, the wooden tip knocked it out of his hands, and Nemo quickly followed by lunging forward and aiming a spinning martial arts kick to the man's jaw that quickly knocked him out and flattened him.

Nemo kneeled by the pirate to take a closer look at him, he was tall and well built, black haired and apparently of age similar to Nemo, at least in regard to appearances. Going through his pockets, he found nothing but a letter signed by an individual simply named Jack and a small wooden eye, there were no hidden weapons or additional ammunition for his pistol, which he had emptied while attempting to kill Nemo.

"Some company, at last." he muttered to himself and smiled, and then went to tie the man up.

* * *

**Now **

_Gotham City__, Maryland_

"Can I buy you a drink?"

Mona turned in her barstool to look at the speaker who sat three two seats away to her left by the bar, she spoke with a posh British accent and was of her early twenties, nearly ten years younger than Mona, who though was there for purposes not social, felt flattered never the less.

"I'm sorry, I'm waiting for someone."

"Oh." said the patron with a graceful smile as she swirled her martini with a toothpick.

An uncomfortable silence fell between the two as they sat at the bar in Club Anactoria, though with the loud band laying at the moment it was hardly a silence. Mona had been there for nearly half an hour, on a Friday evening when Mandy frequented the place mostly, based on her credit card records obtained by Nemo, and still she hadn't appeared.

For some reason, Mona felt somewhat guilty about shooting down the younger woman like that, so she turned to look at her, she saw that she was watching the crowd of women on the dance floor.

"Where are you from?" asked Mona.

"London." said the woman as she turned around to face her.

"Do you live around here?"

Mona quickly realized how wrongly one could understand such a question, so she quickly followed, "I mean, in the city?"

"I've came for a brief internship with the Gotham Theatre Company, I'm an actress you see. My name is Valerie Page."

"I'm… Lisa."

* * *

Nemo waited a she held the cell phone to the side of his face till someone picked up.

"Hello?"

"Boothroyd, this is Nemo. How are you?"

"Excellent Captain, I assume you're calling about your order?"

"Yes, I am."

"Well, we've had reasonable success with it, your plans were very helpful and accurate, and we-"

"But what?"

"We can't get it to deliver the required performance, Captain. I'm afraid that the material we have isn't going to suffice."

"Don't worry about that. I can have the material delivered within the next two weeks."

"No worries then, I'll spend the time tightening everything up a bit."

"You do that."

Nemo pressed the 'End Call' button and then turned to Priest, who was sitting on the fire escape, looking out at the City, amerced in his own thoughts.

"Mister Priest," called Nemo, "Can I see you for a minute?"

Priest obliged and stepped inside through the window, asking, "What is it, Boss?"

"There is a truck parked in the parking lot ten miles from here, I'll need you to drive it and park it in this building's garage.

"Here are the key," said Nemo as he handed him a key and a piece of paper, "And the Address."

"Yeah, whatever." said Priest as he put on his coat and went to leave.

"And Priest, don't look inside it."

* * *

**One Day Earlier **

_New York City_

Vaughn walked into Felix Leiter's office, with an expression of worry on his face.

"What is it, Son?" asked Leiter.

"Sir, erm, there has been a situation."

"What kind?"

"Theft, Sir."

"Of what?"

"A new kind of pure mineral was discovered in West Virginia last year, nearly two tons were excavated. It was being studied in the University of Chicago ever since, only they didn't have much luck. Apparently it has next to no value or useful application, our scientists had expressed interest in it and asked for a few sample of it to study, our men made what could be an amazing discovery and asked for a larger batch to pursue further research.

"The University sent us two hundred pounds of it, and distributed the rest to other research facilities around the world. It left Chicago to our facilities on Staten Island, only when they arrived there it was found that the truck carried scrap metal only."

"Good god!"

"Somewhere while en route, the real mineral was swiped. no one knows when, by whom or even how. Early indication suggest it may have been the work of the Barbossa-Mason-Nemo-Raimus coalition."

"Vaughn, when in the Sam Hill was this mineral?"

Vaughn took a long pause before he answered,

"Our Scientists believe it to be Anti-Matter in Dormant form, Sir."

* * *

_Delaware_

"I'll tell you something, Brothers," said Murphy as he sat in the truck's front seat between Jimmy and Connor who was behind the wheel, "That little capper we pulled has awoken a ravenous thirst for single malt."

"Murph, you eejit, you always have a ravenous thirst for single malt." said Connor with a chuckle.

"Seriously, though, once we ditch the car in the parking lot, do you think we'll have time for a drink?"

"I don't think so. It's a long way back to New York, man." said Jimmy.

"Say, whoever do you think is meant to pick this stuff up?" asked Connor.

"There's probably people working for Mason in Gotham, maybe they know what to do with the loot." said Jimmy.

"Do we even know what the loot is, though?" asked Connor.

"Not me." said Jimmy as Connor drove past a sign by the highway that read, 'You are Now entering Maryland, Enjoy your Stay'

* * *

**Now **

_Gotham City__, Maryland_

"So, who are you waiting for?" asked Valerie with her ever present smile as she drank her martini.

"Oh, her name is Mandy. Do you know her? She said she was a regular here."

"I think I do. She's a small woman, yes? Comes with a tall blonde woman?"

Mona feigned a surprised look as she heard about this other woman, and Valerie quickly tried to repair the damage she might have done, "That is if we're both thinking about the same person, here. Even if we are, maybe they're not involved or anything."

"I hope so."

"So, um, what do you do, Lisa?"

"I'm self employed, I'm a trouble shooter."

"Oh, there comes Mandy right now!" said Valerie as she pointed behind Mona. Mona turned around and looked to see Mandy Hughes walking in, her hair slightly messed up as the weather was getting particularly fierce in Gotham. Mona turned to Valerie and said, "No, that's not her."

"Good news, then?"

"Yeah, it means my girlfriend isn't two timing me, I've only been stood up."

"Well, It's her loss."

* * *

_Berlin__, Germany_

Lucy Wagner woke up from her sleep, somewhat terrified from a dream she had in which a man with wings as black as coal and some demon with an iron helmet had descended upon her, the winged man told her that she would have to deliver a message on his behalf someday, and that he would watch over her and guard her while she took on her mission and fulfilled her destiny. She didn't know what the apparition meant or what it was, but she knew that it wasn't a dream, it was a vision. And whatever it was, it meant something.

* * *

_Gotham City__, Maryland_

"Will you excuse me for just a moment?"

"Sure."

Mona walked to the other side of the bar, carrying her drink with her, and stood next to Mandy who was talking with another woman, and casually dropped the contents of a tiny vile of clear liquid into Mandy's drink as she leaned forward and asked for an onion.

Minutes Later...

Mandy rushed to the bathroom as the fact acting laxative went into effect, leaving Mona with her purse. Mona went through it quietly, acting like she had every right to do it and evading detection as she did it, she took out her cell phone which was luckily turned off, she removed off the back cover and took out the battery then the chip, and placed a tiny, thin, flat, finger-nail shaped device, before returning the chip and the battery and slipping the back cover back on. Just as quietly, she returned her cell phone to its place and walked away, rejoining Valerie at the bar.

"Val," said Mona, "Sorry, but I don't think Mandy is going to show up. I think I'll go home and sulk."

"Oh, yeah," said Valerie as she reached into her purse to fetch a card, "I'll be here till Next month. If you and Mandy don't work it out, you can call me and perhaps we'll have dinner."

"Sure," said Mona with a smile as she accepted the card, "Thanks."

Mona picked up her purse and left a fifty dollar bill beneath her empty glass, and with one final smile directed at Valerie she headed to the coat check room to collect her coat, then went to exit the club, bumping into a tall blonde woman on her way out. She apologized without looking back and went right on.

* * *

It was snowing as Mona walked down the street, her full length light brown suade coat tightly wrapped around her and a black scarf around her neck.

"Hey, cupcake."

Mona turned around to see Priest walking up to her, flaunting his immunity to the temperature by walking around without his coat on.

"What are you doing here?" asked Mona.

"I heard you wore a dress, had to see it for myself. Also, I may have felt the tiniest amount of guilt over setting you up like that. So what did you do?"

"Planted the bug, found out she had a tall blond girlfriend."

"Did anyone make a pass at you?" asked Priest.

"There was this girl, British, real pretty. I got her number. Though she's real young, I think she would make me feel old."

"Yeah, right." scoffed Priest.

"Really. Here's her number." said Mona as she gave him Valerie's card.

"Well," said Priest as he inspected the card, "I'll be damned." He followed as he returned the card, "Nemo sent me to get a truck back to the building. We can drive back. I got it parked one block away."

"Thanks, I appreciate it."

"So, are you gonna call her?" asked Priest.

"Valerie? Come on, Priest, give it a rest."

"Look, I find the fact that you didn't toss the card away intriguing. If you're... well, you know what, I'm sorry if the plan seemed insensitive or whatever."

"At ease, soldier, I'm not."

"Okay then, I would be alright with it if you were. You know during the seventies I lived with a couple of woman who were in a relationship, as a house guest, and they were great people. I also know this one woman-"

"Priest..." sighed Mona.

"Hey, I'm just sayin'."

They walked silently for a few seconds before Mona asked, "Are YOU gay?"

"No. Why'd you think I was?"

"Well, its this thing Nemo might have said."

"Nemo told you I was gay?"

"Not really. Just forget it."

"Well, I'm not."

"Okay, then."

"What do you mean 'Okay then'? You don't believe me?"

"Hey, I'm just saying that for all the time we've worked together, you never made a pass at me."

"What, you want me to hit on you, now?"

"No, I'm just saying that you didn't."

"Well, I MUST be gay, then. 'Cause you're so irresistibly hot that that's the only plausible explanation."

"Hey, man, I just got an eleven year younger than me woman's phone number without even trying!"

"Well, if you must know, you're not my type."

"What's not your type? Capable of taking care of herself? Smart? Alive?"

"Nah, you're Single."

* * *

R&R.

**Next Time: **In 1947, Barbossa wakes up, while sixty years later, our favorite science pirate, vampire for hire and femme fatale find themselves nearing the completion of their plan.


	28. Dissension

**1947 **

The pirate looked at the savage that sat on a rock ten feet away from him, eyeing him intently. The savage had knocked him out several hours ago, then tied him to a tree where he remained for hours while the savage disappeared and returned with some fruit and started a camp fire, before he sat on the rock and ate from his fruit and said nothing, simply listening while the pirate shouted and barked insults till his throat was sore and he had to calm down and slightly sober up.

As the pirate sat there, with his hands tied to the tree trunk behind him, trying to figure out a way to escape before it was too late, the savage did something odd, it was the oddest thing possible under the circumstances. The savage said, "Your name is Hector, isn't it? You were barely tangible earlier but I think I heard you say your name was Hector."

Hector eyed the savage suspiciously, "Aye, my name's Hector. How is that you speak the queen's tongue? Are we on some sovereignty of the crown?"

"I'm afraid not. We're both stranded on an uninhibited island."

"Who are you?"

"Call me Nemo."

"Well then, mister Nemo, Do yeh mind untying me?"

"Oh, of course not." said Nemo as he stood up from his rock, picking up a couple of Bananas and a knife fashioned out of sharpened rock in the process, then headed over to Hector, and tossed the fruit into his lap and went to cut his ties, saying, "I wouldn't try anything unwise if I were you, you are out of bullets, and you'll find me insurmountable in physical combat."

"I bet yeh are." said Hector as he rubbed his wrists then peeled one of the Bananas and started eating it, "So tell me, how is it that an islander speaks finer than me?"

"I'm not from here. I used to be a Naval Captain working with the British Government, the tide carried me here two years ago. Did you Captain that ship?" said Nemo as he pointed at the wreckage on the shore.

"Aye, 'course I did. I'm Captain Hector Barbossa, Pirate Lord of the Caspian Sea. Hah! That'd be the Black Pearl."

"No offence, Captain, but it seems fairly out of its times."

"She's an old hag. But don't sell her short, its a fine ship, and believe me when I say that this ship is _not from this world_. And what has become of your ship?"

"It was a Submarine. It was Destroyed."

"How'd John Bull allowed an Indian to Captain a submarine?"

"It was MY submarine, I built it."

"Alright, who destroyed it?"

Nemo paused for a moment.

"The very people I worked for; an Agency that calls itself the League."

Barbossa leaned forward, "Are you telling me you used to work for the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?"

Nemo was quit surprised, it took him a long time before he could ask, "You know of the League?"

"Know 'em? I used to work for 'em. That is until they attacked my crew and only I managed to get away."

"What for?"

"I refused to follow orders. You see I was asked to join when the war started, offering a full pardon and immunity, being a proud Englishman I accepted, I worked for them mostly running guns and rescuing sailors whose ships had been destroyed. Two months ago I was asked to transport four Nazi scientists to England, the League was willing to spare them trials from crimes against humanity if they helped them with some sort of weapons program. Now these guns had made many people suffer, they were being treated like royalty when the fu'rer was around and people were dieing. Don't get me wrong, I'm no saint. I've killed, I plundered and pillaged for money and pleasure, but I wasn't about to stand idly by while these murderous cunts got away scott free just because the League found it convenient."

"So you refused to transport them?"

"Not exactly, I took them aboard the Pearl, on the second day I had deprived them of all comforts and forced them to perform the most humiliating tasks on the ship, just like they'd done to those prisoners in the concentration camps. They were eventually sent for a little _swim_.

"I decided not to return to England at all and went to port instead, while I was away from the ship and the crew, I received this letter from my dearest enemy and worst friend, telling me that the League would come after me. I tried to get word to my men, but by the time I managed to they were too dead to listen. I had to sail away with my ship all alone, and with my crew of none I couldn't manage a splendid job of it."

"Well, I need not say that I am sorry for your loss."

"I haven't lost all." said Barbossa, "We can fix the Pearl!"

"Can we, now?"

"You said you built a Submarine, didn't you? I'm sure between the two of us we can manage to get it floating again long enough to find some land that hadn't been godforsaken."

"The damage is severe, the hull alone makes it impossible."

"There's gun powder inside, and nails and rivets and axes and dozens of things that could be useful."

"That may be so, but that doesn't change the fact that we don't have the material to mend it. What are we supposed to use for wood? There is nothing we could use in the jungle."

"We'll use Sea Turtles if we have to!"

Nemo stood up and picked up his spear, and said, "You can stay here for the night. When you had calmed down and realized the futility of what you are suggesting, you may join me down the beach, where I have better fresh watter, better food and better shelter. Goodnight, Captain."

Nemo walked away, towards his hut down the beach, while Barbossa just sat with his back to the tree, fuming with frustration.

"I'm Hector Barbossa!" he shouted, "Pirate Lord of the Caspian Sea, a man so Evil that Hell couldn't contain! And I'll be damned if I spent the rest of my years stranded on a beach with a half naked Indian that claims he had a submarine!"

* * *

**Now **

_London__, England_

"Director Bond," said Harmony as she walked into Bond's office holding a message, "This came from our station in Qumar."

"What is it about?"

"A request to extend the holding period for a detaine."

Bond put on his reading glasses and skimmed through the sheet of paper, though he only had to read two abbreviations on the bottom of the page, which were _'PHNX'_ and _'MGFN'_. He stamped it and signed his name on the dotted line, before handing it back to Harmony, saying, "File it and quickly fax it back to the Station."

"Yes Sir."

"Will I see you tonight?"

"Definitely."

* * *

**Three Days Later **

_Gotham City__, Maryland_

"We've had a breakthrough," said Nemo as Mona came in, "We've been listening in on Mandy Hughes' calls for the past few days. Today we picked up a direct call between her and Codename Josephine.

"The Conversation concerned some kind of convention two days from Now. When we were in Hughe's apartment, we were able to copy her appointment book for the rest of the month, the date and presumed time coincide with an engagement she had scheduled at the R.H. Kane Building. We have the known whereabouts of Josephine without two days with a hundred percent certainty."

"Wow." exclaimed Mona, "I guess this means this is it, then."

"Yep, the superbowl." said Priest as he sat on the couch, "How do we go in?"

"You won't, Priest." said Nemo.

"Say what?"

"It's too risky. You have so far displayed the same level of impulse control found in dogs, and the foresight of a child. This is as close as we ever got to finding out who Josephine is and I'm not going to allow you to fuck it up."

"Man," scoffed Priest, "You must mean business if you're using the f-word."

"From here on till three days from now, you will remain unassociated with our operation."

"Why don't you stick your operation where the sun don't shine." said Priest as he stood up angrily, "How else are you going to get in there without me? You're face has got to be known by everyone working for the League."

"True, and with all the ruckus you have caused, the League must has realized that you're working in this City." said Nemo, "You think that they're like the police department? That simply faking your death is going to throw them off?"

"I'm all you got."

"No, you're not." said Mona.

"Oh, so you're gonna do it, huh?" asked Priest, his canine teeth elongating with no intention of his own.

"What do you care? You're in it for the money, aren't you?"

"And you're not?"

"I'm here because Nemo and I made a deal, and I intend to live up to my end."

"Fine, then." said Priest as he picked up his coat and keys and headed for the door, "I'll be downstairs."

Neither Nemo nor Mona said anything as the vampire left and slammed the door behind him, causing bits of plaster dust to fall from the ceiling.

"You think he'll stay out of it?" asked Mona.

"As you said, he has no convictions at all. He gets paid the same amount regardless. His ego is wounded but I expect he'll get over it by then."

"Are you sure?"

"No, but he's not the biggest of our problems."

"So how am I gonna get in?"

"We'll sort it out, I'll use my contacts, come up with a list of people attending. We will select a suitable candidate, neutralize her and have you assume her identity."

* * *

**One Day Later **

Mona listened while Nemo explained the plan, as they both sat looking at the computer, on which were the vitals and picture of a woman that generally resembled Mona.

"This is Jane Smith." said Nemo, "She's an Assassin. Are you familiar with her?"

"By reputation. She's got a thing for all the clichéd tricks, but real good otherwise."

"Well, she's the closest physical match to you and she's traveling alone, and the chances are that she might not be recognized by anyone else attending."

"She's got a husband, he's an Assassin too."

"Yes, Mister John Smith." said Nemo, "we have tracked him down to La Rochelle, presumably he's on a job and it is unlikely he's supposed to attend as well. I'll keep an eye out for him anyway."

"Alright. But do we know what is going on in this event?"

"A debate between some of the upcoming election's candidates. The League has ties to the government so I believe that's why Codename Josephine and Mandy Hughes are attending."

Nemo paused before asking, "How sure are you of your chances of beating Mrs. Smith?"

"Depends. Do you want me to have her killed?"

"That won't be necessary."

"All the better. She's mostly used to people coming right at her, she's not accustomed to subtlety and low volume. I'm pretty sure she won't be a handful. One thing I have going for me is that I keep a low profile, I doubt she ever heard of me."

"Let's hope so."

"What about Priest?" asked Mona.

"I'll give him some meaningless assignment, something that might involve bloodshed, that'll placate him."

* * *

**One Day Later **

The kick to Mona's sternum made her sick and she folded like a dollar bill and dropped to the floor. Mrs. Smith kicked her in the ribs twice before rushing to fetch a gun from the nightstand.

It had all started nicely. After learning which Five Star Hotel Mrs. Smith was staying in, Mona had taken up the room directly above her, and spent the day lounging in the lobby, waiting for her to show up. At Midday she emerged from the gym and headed up to her room to take a shower. Mona followed her and took a different elevator upstairs. Once she knew that Mrs. Smith was in her room with the 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the door, she got into her own room and got out of the window, belaying herself down using a rope and sneaking in through the window.

The thing was, Mrs. Smith was a woman who took the quickest of showers. Mona was planning to wait for her by the bathroom door and ambush her from behind, injecting her with a syringe full of powerful tranquilizer. But instead, she found herself face to face with Jane Smith, who had just stepped out of the shower wearing a bathrobe and Mona, perched on the window ledge, where the tiniest shove would send her falling to her demise from the Twentieth floor of the Gotham Plaza. Choosing life over the chance to properly engage Mrs. Smith in combat, Mona clumsily dove into the suite's floor where Mrs. Smith managed to get the first punch in.

Mrs. Smith's methods may have been corny, but that didn't make her any less a better fighter. She was certainly a better trained fighter than Mona who was a better shot. But in such close quarters, their marksmanship were more or less equal, and it all boiled down to who could get top the gun first, and who got to a weapon first was who could keep her opponent down longest. The odds were in Jane Smith's favor.

Mona jumped up to her feet and charged at Mrs. Smith, knocking the gun out of her hand just as she grabbed it, and sending it flying out the window. Mona grabbed a handful of Mrs. Smith's hair and tried to shove her head face first into a wall but she put her hands up to stop her, then thrust one elbow back into Mina's mouth, putting a stop to her offence, the turned around and punched her twice, sending her staggering back for several steps.

The next thing Mona saw was Mrs. Smith coming at her with a knife she had hidden under her pillow, this was getting serious. She took the best defense stance in her repertoire and focused on the knife and how inconvenient it would be for it to penetrate her anatomy. She was able to block her attack, holding the knife wielding hand with both of hers as Mrs. Smith pressed her forearm against Mona's throat.

"Who send you?" demanded Mrs. Smith as she fought to stick the knife.

Besides fighting prowess, Mrs. Smith was the better of the two physically. Mona knew wouldn't last long and had to act fast. She let one of her hands go of her target's wrist and reached for the lampshade on the table next to her which was lit, and buried it into Mrs. Smith's side. The wire-framed shade crumpled and the bulb was thrust against the solid flank and it shattered, the wiring within it coming in contact with Mrs. Smith wet body.

Mrs. Smith spasm and let go of Mona. It was the opening Mona needed and she took advantage of it, dropping the lamp and reaching into the back pocket of her cargo pants and slipping her fingers into brass knuckles. Before Mrs. Smith could regain her composure she jumped forward with a left jab, burying the cold metal into her adversaries jaw. The punch sent the Assassin reeling backward, oblivious to which day of the week it was, Mona followed with a right cross with a her bare fist and a weighed uppercut that send Mrs. Smith flying back, unconscious.

Mona rubbed her bruised knuckles and crouched down, panting, trying to regain her breath.

"If... If you only showered like a normal gal." said Mona to the unconscious woman, then went to the wall by the open window where she had dropped the syringe. Then made her way back to Mrs. Smith, and turned her over, raised her bathrobe and plunged the syringe into her upper thigh, before pressing down and pumping enough tranquilizers to keep her sleeping for long after Mona had taken her position.

* * *

Priest walked into the public restroom where a man five foot-nine inches in height, with short blond hair and a pale complexion stood straightening his expensive suit and looking into the mirror.

Priest opened the stall door behind the man then stood a few feet behind him and to his right and said nothing, simply looking blankly over the man's shoulder into the mirror. The man quickly grew irritated by him and quipped, "Why don't you take a picture and jack off to it later?"

"I want your invitation."

"What?!"

Priest reached forward with one hand, cupping the man's jaw with tremendous speed, then pulled back, spinning as he did so, simultaneously twisting the man's neck and hurling him with formidable force into the stall.

Priest casually stepped into the stall, apathetically eyeing the man he's just killed as he lay crumpled on the toilet, his neck twisted one hundred degrees to the back and the top of his head bashed open after hitting the wall.

"I said I wanted your invitation, you son of a bitch."

* * *

R&R.

**Next Chapter: **In 1948, Nemo and Barrbossa take metters into their own hands. In the present, Mona ghoes to discover Codename Josephine's identity, but runs into trouble. While Priest has his own devices. Before it all ends, somone will fall.


	29. Josephine

_Okay, so while going throught he past chapters to figure some stuff, I noticed I've made a few alterations along the way that I failed to make everyone aware of._

_These retcons are as follows,_

_In early chapters the name of he building that houses the Gotham City Branch of the League is called the Ashgard Building, it is supposes to be called the Novick Building._

_Josephine is initially described as having red hair, it's supposed to be Blond._

_Mandy's last name is mentioned as Darkholm in the fourth chapter, while the correct name used in latter chapters in Hughes, as you now know._

_Judas Priest's age is 232 in 1912, which makes him around 327 in the present day. 327 is the correct age, though he is described as being older in other chapters. Mona's age is 33. Nemo is supposed to appear in his fifties._

_Mona and Priest's vehicle is supposed to be a van._

_Also, last chapter Nemo mentions that the shin-dig Mandy and Josephine are attending is a political debate or something, I don't remember :P. It's been changed to a fund-raiser for one of the Presidential candidates for next Year's elections._

_One of those days I'm going to fix everything up, till then, sorry. sheepish grin_

* * *

**1948**

Fixing the Black Pearl was painstaking and time consuming, but Nemo and Barbossa had time in spades, and their hearts that ached for revenge and reprisal blinded them from the pain. And so it was, almost one year after the Black Pearl had arrived at the island, Nemo and Barbossa were ready to make sail.

Barbossa had come up with the idea of taking down the walls in the quarters below deck and using their wood to fix in the breach, and then they had to rebuild the mast, fix the rudder, mend the sales and dozens of other repairs, but they were done.

Nemo emerged from the cabin, wearing clothes that belonged to one of the ship's former crew, they were the first clothes he had worn in nearly three years.

"It's bad luck for a ship to sail unnamed." said Barbossa as he stood at the helm, looking fondly at the horizon.

"What are you talking about? This is the black Pearl."

"No, not anymore. I can't explain it, but there is something that has changed about it. It's different now, and I don't mean from the damages and incomplete repairs, I feel like there is something that has vacated it. What do you think we should kill her?"

"I don't know."

"How about... Calypso?"

"Sounds good to me."

* * *

**Now**

_ Gotham City, Maryland_

Mona finished putting on her makeup in the kitchen, while Nemo made some last minute preparations and reviewed intelligence reports on the computer.

"How do I look?" asked Mona a she stood up and walked over to Nemo, she had hair in a bun and wore suit and a skirt.

Nemo glanced at her quickly before looking back at the computer, and said, "You can barely see the bruises."

Mona sighed, and muttered, "Men."

"What did you say?"

"Nothing. What's the situation with Priest?"

"Still menopausing. I had went down to give him an assignment to pass his time, to try and investigate a crime lord known as the Rumor. Of course, there is no such man, I made him up. Anyway, he refused."

"How come?"

"His precise words were, 'I got four hundred ducks and I hadn't gotten laid for over a month'" said Nemo with a humorous imitation of Priest's mid-western accent, "Then he left."

Mona tried not to chuckle. Nemo got up from his seat and stood at Mona's side, "Hold still, I'm going to place a micro-communication device. It is untraceable and nigh-undetectable. It could cause irritation but bare with it, I will be able to hear everything you say."

Mona felt an instant itch as the device was placed, Nemo then handed her a metal cigarette lighter.

"It's a spy camera. Press a button by the hinge to take a picture. The lens is on the engraved side. I've placed a couple of lipsticks in your purse. They will be your only weapons. The red is a smoke bomb, and the black is a shocking device, it has five charges, enough for you to neutralize a guard and take his weapon. However-"

"I know, only do it as a last resort."

"Precisely. Now, on you go... Make me proud."

* * *

**Later**

_The R.H. Kane Building_

Mona tried not to display her discomfort at the device in her ear, and simply sipped her wine, while listening to the drone of some woman who sat by her.

The event was a fundraiser for the benefit of Senator Regan MacNeil, from Washington, D.C., one of the stronger democratic candidates in the bid of Presidency in next year's elections."

Josephine was nowhere to be seen at the moment.

An old man in a wheelchair rolled by her, and instantly started starring at her, with a look of recognition in his eyes. As his aid pushed him away, he kept looking at her, his lower lip trembling as if he was fighting back the urge to shout. It made Mona uneasy, she figured that he had thought she was Mrs. Smith, but the fact was that there was something familiar about him as well.

"Excuse me, do you know the man in the wheelchair?" asked Mona as she leaned to her left and asked the woman next to her.

"That's John Waltzer, he's a former Senator from Virginia. Shame what happened to him, still it could have been worse."

"What do you mean?"

"There was an attempt at his life, back in Ninety-Nine, in New York. It left him crippled from the neck down."

Bells started ringing in Mona's head as she kept looking at the man, who was arguing with his aid at the moment, the young man kept taking nervous looks at her.

"It's like something out of a movie," said the woman at Mona's side, "Some say it was a hitwoman disguised as a hooker, thought that's probably the tabloid's active imagination."

Waltzer was now talking to two other Agents at the moment, they were trying to calm him down, but he was waving his head violently, as it was the only part of him he could move, and ordering them to do something.

"Will you excuse me for a minute?" said Mona as she got up and picked up her purse, then headed out of the room.

She walked through the empty corridor and touched the device in her ear, "Nemo," she said, "Are you there?"

"Yes, what is it?"

"My cover has been compromised."

"What do you mean?"

"Former Senator John Waltzer is also attending, I believe he has recognized me. The two of us go way back."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"He was my second Job, Nemo. The second person I tried to kill; only I screwed and made him a paraplegic."

"Are you certain he has ID'd you?"

"Positive."

"Then exit the building, wait for me in the book shoop one block due south, I'll meet you there."

**Minutes Later**

Mona Couldn't Believe what she was seeing as Priest went through the same security she went through, before he was allowed to enter the room where the fundraiser was being held, he was wearing an expensive suit and had dyed his hair blond, and he didn't seem to notice that she was there.

Mona hurried to the revolving doors and pushed it open, then as she stepped outside and headed due south, said, "Nemo... We have a Problem."

She could hear Nemo sigh over the ear piece, "What is it now?"

"Priest is here."

"What?!"

"He's in disguise. Something tells me he had the same idea we did."

"But how?"

"He's got superhuman-hearing, Nemo, he was listening in the whole time we spoke! All he had to do was sneak in when we were sleeping and go through the guest roaster and pick someone for him to replace."

Nemo muttered something in Hindi, though Mona thought it could only be a curse.

"Alright, we stick to the plan. We'll deal with Priest the minute he leaves."

* * *

**1944**

_ Casablanca, Morocco_

Rick Blaine took a sip of his brandy and a drag of his Turkish cigarette as he looked at the blood stained spear-head wrapped in a dirty Nazi flag.

"So this is the thing that is going to win us the war?" asked Rick.

"Either that or I just risked my life for scrap iron." said Priest as he drank straight from a bottle of Scotch, as the two both sat at the bar of the vacant night club named Rick's cafe Americane, at the late hours of the night soon to turn into the early minutes of day.

"How hard was getting it?" asked Blain as he put out his cigarette.

"Getting into castle Wolfenstein was easy," said Priest, "Getting out wasn't."

"It never is. Well," said Rick as he wrapped up the spear and slid it over to Priest, "I salute you on the behalf of a grateful nation. What agency did you say you were with?"

"D.R.I."

"I heard something about it by the grap-vine."

"Yourself?"

"O.S.S."

"Never heard of that."

"That's the idea." said Rick as he extinguished his cigarette and stepped away from the bar.

"There's a storage room in the back with a cot, you can make yourself home there. I'll arrange transport to the States within two days."

* * *

**Now**

_ Gotham City, Maryland_

"Scotch," said Priest, "Neat."

"Coming up." said the Bartender. Priest stood waiting, leaning against the bar and looking at the audience who were enjoying their dinner accompanied by the sounds of piano playing.

He tried to analyze the smells as he scanned the audience, he had caught a whiff of Mandy's scent when he was in her bedroom, and hoped he had memorized it enough for him to find her tonight.

The bartender handed him his drink and he quietly sipped form it, smiling as he finally found Mandy at a table halfway across the room. The table was small, enough to seat only two people, and at the moment the other seat was somewhat removed from the table, as if it had been occupied by someone who had left. Priest wondered if he missed his chance at finding Josephine, hoping that he didn't.

And then there she was. She caught his eye instantly, long before she sat next to Mandy, and she did the eyes of half the men in the room as well. She was tall and slim, her hair was Blond, and from where he stood, Priest could tell that her eyes were cobalt blue, she wore a low-cut black evening gown that did her curves justice and a brown shawl around her shoulders. Priest was mesmerized by her for a minute, it wasn't just her looks, there was something different about her. He simply starred at her for a minute, eyeing every visible inch of her till the bartender whistled quietly.

"Man, I wouldn't mind hitting that!"

Priest turned around to look at the bartender, who instantly felt shame for his voicing of his thoughts and said, "Sorry, Sir.. I-"

"It's alright. I wouldn't mind hitting that either. The hair is a dye job, though."

"Really? How'd you know?"

"Give me another Scotch."

The bartender smiled in mild embarrassment, then went to pour the drink. Priest kept his eyes on the Blond, having realized something important, that he was looking at Josephine, a woman who has had all those who have compromised her identity killed. He alone knew what she looked like, and he liked the way it felt.

He sipped his second glass of Scotch, casually sweeping the bar and picking up a cell phone belonging to another man and dropping it in his pocket. He then drank the rest of his drink before walking away from the bar, leaving a twenty dollar bill under his drink.

Getting away from the scene of the crime, he stepped out into the corridor and with his new stolen phone which was fitted with a built in Camera, luckily for him as he forgot to bring a camera, he struck the keys quickly, dialed a number and pressed send.

* * *

"Edmund Gilmore." said Nemo as he pointed at the computer screen as he and Mona sat in the back of the van, "This is the man Priest is impersonating."

"Who is he?" asked Mona as she changed out of her skirt, behind Nemo.

"Old money, as they say. Arrested a few times for rape but his lawyers keep getting him out every time."

"Knowing Priest, he's probably killed him." said Mona as she tied her belt then joined Nemo's side. Mona's phone beeped just then.

"What is it?"

"I have a message, it's from an unknown number." said Mona as she pressed the 'read' button.

"It's from Priest, he says he's got Josephine in her sight and will get a pictuer of her."

"Call him!" barked Nemo furiously, "I want to talk to that Redneck right now!"

* * *

Priest pressed the 'Do Not Accept' button on the cell phone, then switched it to silent mode, smiling with glee as he envisioned Nemo fuming with anger, taking the brunt of his frustration on Mona, who would shoot him if he went too far.

**Later**

It was time for the job to be done, Josephine was talking to Senator MacNeil, both were distracted. He turned on the cell phone camera, and set the timer for twenty seconds, and put it to his ear and pretended to talk to someone on the other line, then made his way out, passing by the two women while they were still talking, just as the countdown reached zero.

Priest felt the lens move and the picture being taken, it was over, and all was left was for him to make a smooth exit.

He grinned faintly and looked back as he was leaving, to take one last look at her. It was strange, it felt like time had slowed down, and as he was looking at her, she turned away from the Senator and looked at him, into him, her smile disappeared as her penetrating look dug deep into his soul.

Priest couldn't remember when he ever felt unhinged as he felt right then, time returned to its natural pace and he looked away from her, hurrying towards the door.

* * *

"Stupid, Priest! Stupid!" Priest muttered to himself as he raced to the roof.

Just a few minutes ago, he was about to make his way out when a when a pair of Agents stopped him, claiming they had a few question for him, but Priest knew better. He attacked them before they had a chance to get the drop on him, and with more of them outside, he had to get out of the building some other way.

The important question was how? It was obvious that Josephine had ordered that he had to be stopped, but why? If there were any truth to Nemo's claims, he would have been watched by the League for some time, they were waiting for a time when his skills would prove useful and that would be when he was recruited by them. Of course, Nemo beat them to the punch and grabbed Priest to fight them. If that were true, then it would have meant that they knew of him, and perhaps Josephine recognized him as such.

Priest burst onto the rooftop where he directly lunged at a security guard and knocked him out.

There was something about the look, though. The look the two of them shared carried something Priest couldn't fathom, something outside the scope of what was to be expected.

"Stop!" said Mandy as she and a few other Agents came flowing through the door, brandishing their weapons.

"Get on the floor, and put your hands behind you head, or we'll shoot."

"If you think that I would do that," said Priest, "Then you people should have been watching a little bit... closer."

Mandy and the Agents opened fire as Priest ran to the ledge, laughing loudly, moving in everything but a straight line, evading their bullets, then finally jumped up high with superhuman agility, before he started sinking down, out of their view.

"Cease fire! Cease fire!"

Mandy rushed to the ledge to see what had become of him. She scanned the area below to see where might he have disappeared to, where he could have landed, and saw a tiny object moving on a speeding silver line down below.

"The monorail."

* * *

Priest's landing was accurate, but painful. His legs throbbed from hitting the rails so hard, but he had to move quickly before the train would hit him. He jumped up fifteen feet into the air and when he landed, it was on the top of the train.

He moved to the back, and broke into the rear carriage which was empty, then took out his phone and dialed Mona's number.

"Mona... Yes, I know... look... look... Tell Nemo to kiss my ass, tell him that I've got Josephine's goddamn photo, and I need you both to come pick me up at Wayne Station."

Priest ended the call, then sat on the floor and straightened his legs. He inspected his body for injuries and found none, the pain in his legs was subsiding.

"Not Bad, Priest." he said as he removed the memory chip from the cell phone and put it in his back pocket, "Hope for you yet."

**A few minutes Later**

Priest smiled with glee as the cart doors slid open as the train arrived in Wayne Station. He straightened his jacket as he prepared to walk out, but froze and lost the smile when he was what was outside.

They were twelve Swat team members, armed with machine guns and covered in black.

"Shit." muttered Priest to himself, then smiled unintentionally, accepting his fate.

"Fire!"

Hundreds of bullets from twelve guns pierced the air, sharing the common target of Priest's body. The vampire staggered back a few steps as the bullets plunged into him, and fell to the floor as they tore off his right leg. He watched in pain as his lost limb went up in fire and turned into ash, a second before a bullet hit him in the eye and struck him blind.

* * *

R&R.

**Next Chapter:** I haven't written anything yet, but Mona is generally a bad ass.


	30. Mona

**Now**

_Gotham City, Maryland_

Nemo froze as he looked at the monitor that displayed security camera footage from inside the train station as he sat in the back of the van. The SWAT team members had just lowered down their weapons, and their leader ushered for one to go in and look for something.

Mona was gone, she had went in looking for Priest before the train arrived, anticipating trouble. Nemo had opted to stay and hack into the station's computer system, to provide her with logistic support.

"Mona..." he said into the microphone.

"Yeah, Nemo, I heard the gunshots." said Mona through the ear piece, "How many?"

"A Dozen, armed to the teeth. You have to leave, now."

"I can take 'em." said Mona confidently.

"Take them? With what? All you have is a single gun."

Nemo could hear suppressed shots being fired, followed by a short burst from a machine gun.

"I HAD a single gun," said Mona, "Now I have tear gas and a machine gun."

Nemo rubbed his forehead nervously, "What did you just do?"

"I took out two men standing guard. So, are we doing this thing or what?"

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I can do it."

"Alright then, keep listening carefully..."

* * *

"Aww, Jesus, Castle!" said one of the SWAT team members as he stood above Priest's bullet ridden and dismembered body, "The son of a bitch is alive!" 

"What?" asked Castle, the unit's leader.

"He's alive! He's moving! Should I put a bullet in his head?"

"No, wait." said Castle, then spoke into the radio strapped to his chest, "Miss Hughes, the target has taken almost three hundred bullets and is still alive... Yes Ma'am."

Castle looked up to his men, "Found the camera yet?"

"Yes, Sir." said one of the men, as he stepped out of the cart with the stolen phone in his hand.

"Excellent. Sgt. Williams, Cut his head off."

One of the Swat team members walked into the cart, holding an electric chainsaw in hand and started it, took his position and prepared to cut.

"Miss Hughes, we have the Camera."

Before Sgt. Williams could be able to claim he was the one who took down Judas Priest, one of the cart window's shattered as it was penetrated by bullets from the distance, they found their target into the sergeant's skull and he fell to the ground, the chainsaw flew and cut into Priest's arm before hitting the floor and switching off.

"Cover!" shouted Lt. Castle, before something flew through the air and landed inside the cart between what remained of Priest's legs. Castle took one look at it and realized it was a canister of tear gas.

"Masks on!"

The SWAT team scattered in each direction, fumbling to put on their masks and get out of the mystery shooter's firing range, which appeared to be coming from up the stairs behind them. Two shots blew, striking the masks in the hands of two men. The canister activated, quickly filling the cart with tear gas and forcing the officers away.

"Sir, the target..." said one of the members that managed to get their masks on.

"Forget about the target, he's not going anywhere!"

The two men who had had their masks destroyed were couching heavily on the floor and quickly collapsed.

"Gerard and Hennely are down!" shouted Castle as he pressed his back to a wall and stayed there for a few seconds, gesturing for his men to take their positions.

He leaned around the corner and was nearly shot for it, he move back quickly, but not before he saw who it was that had came for Priest, it was a woman, wearing one of their gas masks and weilding one of their guns.

"Men," spoke Castle into the radio, "We're taking 'em down, Summers, Sumner, you flank from the left, Myself and Copeland will take the right. Shoot to kill. The rest of you, cover us."

Sgt. Millers stepped out, aiming his weapon at the top of the stairs, before Castle came out and they both started walking slowly up the stairs, Sgt. Summers and Sgt. Sumner did the same on the stairs by the other landing, both flights of stairs led to the upper level where the shooter was at. Once both teams were near the top, they sprung by the corner and took their arm at where they expected the shooter to be. They were surprised to see no one at all.

"Where the hell'd she go?"

Sgt. Copeland noticed the opened ventilation duct in the ceiling halfway between the two teams, but couldn't say a word as a hail of gunfire rained down from the duct above him and Castle, killing them both.

"The Captain is down, Fall Back!" said Sgt. Summers and shoved Sgt. Sumner back down the stairs, "Men, she's in the ducts!"

Mona's upper half dropped down from the vent upside down, and shot Sgt. Summers in the chest before dropping down to the ground and landing on her feet. She ran to left flight of stairs and dove across the corner, holding up her machine gun and firing in mid air, hitting Sumner who had made the mistake of catching Summers in his arms as he fell to the back, dead.

"Seven down," said Mona as she hit the ground, she tossed the machine gun aside as she was out of ammo and picked up Kane's shotgun, "What's the situation?"

"The gas is starting to clear up. The remaining five are below, two of them are dragging the unconscious to safety and one is.. Damn, he's about to destroy some sort of camera-phone, it must be the one that Priest used." said Nemo their the ear-piece.

"I'm on it."

* * *

"The man was a confirmed to be super-human by Castle," said Mandy to Josephine in a room in the R.H. Kane building, as a couple of League Agents stood near by, "I authorized decapitation. That was the last communication." 

"So, who is he?" asked Josephine nervously.

" I think it's safe to say he's a vampire. Probably working with the opposition. I recall that Captain Nemo had recruited a vampire from our Red List two months ago."

"What about the camera?"

"We have it."

"Good," said Josephine as she went to exit the room, "Keep me posted."

* * *

A bullet came within an inch of Mona's head as she jumped back to the ground, firing her gun at the closest man to her. She rolled back, firing the gun at the man as he fell then picking the machine gun off the ground. She fired at two men who were pulling the unconsciosua away, then jumped aside, raising her two pistols and firing them at the last man standing. 

It was too late, she thought, she had seen one of the men destroy the cell-phone before her. Priest may have been dieing for nothing.

"The coast is clear, Nemo." she said.

"Do you have the Camera?"

"No, it's been destroyed. I'm brining Priest out now."

Mona stood up and ran to the cart where the gas had cleared up enougt for her to see that what was left of Priest sat on the floor leaning against the wall, while piles of ash surrounded him.

"Nemo, I think Priest's dead." said Mona as she fought the urge to regurgitate, "He's missing both legs, half his face, an ear and his eyes."

"Is he a pile of dust?"

"No."

"Then he'll make it. Just get him out of here."

"Yeah, sure."

Mona dropped the shotgun and reached down and grabbed Priest's larger thigh and one of his arms, then tried to lift him up. But the arm came off his body and burned up instantly, she instinctively dropped it and watched in revulsion as the limb turned to ash. Priest's head slammed against the floor and he whimpered weekly.

"Oh, you poor bastard."

Mona tried again, holding the other arm and lifted him successfully this time, she lifted him and placed him across her shoulder, then pulled her gun out of its holster, and made her way out of the cart.

* * *

Nemo steered to the left as he heard police sirens in the distance, cutting off a driver who honked his horn in furious objection, while Mona sat at the back by Priest who was making gurgling and choking noises. 

"Nemo, he's heating up!"

"Roll down the windows, the cold air'll do him good."

"What the hell is going on? I thought you said he would make it!"

"Vampires have an accelerated regenerative system, they can survive normally mortal, and a vampire of Priest's species can even regrow lost limbs. When a vampire receives an injury too severe, their regenerative system tries to heal the body fast, too fast, which causes them to combust. This normally happens when the hearts is breached or the brain is destroyed-"

"Nemo, give me the cliff notes version!"

"His body is overloading, his regenerative system is burning itself out trying to fix him up, only he's lost too much blood for it to work. So his temperature is rising and unless we get him massive amounts of blood soon, we're going to loose him."

"We'll never get back in time, the traffic is terrible."

"That I know."

"Well what are we going to do, then?"

Nemo paused for a moment to consider.

"I know someone who might help us." he said as he swerved sharply to the right, getting off the interstate.

* * *

R&R. Sorry about the shortness of this chapter.

**Next Chapter: **Priest may be saved, or maybe not, but before he is, he spends days filledwith nightmares of his past.


	31. Judas

**1932**

_St. Louis, Missouri_

"What the hell kind of man goes and calls his son Judas?"

Priest sat at the edge of the bed, tying his right shoelace, "My old man was somethin' special."

The thirty year old ebony beauty smiled as she sat up in bed, wrapping a sheet around her slim naked torso that glistened with sweat.

"So, where you off to, Judas?"

"New York, wanna tag along?"

"If only I could."

"On the count of your husband, right?"

"That's right."

"How is he with ya?"

Priest instantly realized the stupidity of his question, as a woman who is married to a man that treats her well isn't likely to commit adultery.

"He's a husband... I handle him just fine."

There suddenly was the loud rumbling of a car coming from outside, followed by the sound of heavy steps on the wooden porch outside.

"Oh god!" said the woman as she jumped in bed to her knees in fright, "He's here."

"Who is here?" asked Priest, completely unfazed by her panic.

"Stagger Lee, my husband, he's..."

"Vivian, you Bitch!" came a furious rumbling voice, "Do you got some motherfucker in here?"

"You want me to kill him?" asked Priest calmly, three seconds before Stagger Lee came bursting through the door. Stagger was a big man; over six feet tall, he wore a dark gray pinstriped suit, rat-drawn shoes and an old Stetson hat.

"Motherfucker," said Stagger, "Do you know who I am?"

"Yeah, Stagger, right?"

"Boy you got some nerve, comin' into to my home..."

Priest paid him very no attention as he leaned down to tie his left shoe.

"Peckerwood, when Stagger speaks to you, you listen and pray you live through the night." said Stagger as he reached into his jacket, "You don't..."

Stagger took out a .45 colt pistol and aimed it at Priest's chest and pulled the trigger.

"Tie..."

Stagger fired for a second time, knocking Priest from the bed to the floor.

"Your Mother..."

Stagger fired for a third time.

"Fuckin' shoe!", said Stagger before firing three rounds into the riddled and bloodied chest of Judas Priest, who lay at the foot of the bed, motionless.

Stagger turned his attention towards his unfaithful wife, who sat on the bed trembling, quietly sobbing, sensing that her end was near.

"You..." said Stagger, his eyes glimmering with animalistic rage as he inched towards her, and dropped his gun to the floor.

"Stagger, please," pleaded Vivian, "I'll... I'll anything you want me to, just please, don't hurt me."

Stagger's hands tightly gripped Vivian's throat, squeezing tightly, choking the life out of her. Her eyes bulged and rolled back as she felt everything darken.

Stagger was sent flying through the room, crashing through the bedroom window and into his own barren front yard.

Before Stagger could get to his feet, Priest had leaped, soaring through the air from the bedroom onto him, crushing his ribs, before crouching on top of him and biting into his neck.

Stagger knew what was happening to him; his blood was being drained by a man who had slept with his wife and taken three bullets in the chest from him, he realized it and he could do nothing about it, but bulge his eyes and whimper in utter horror as his life drained away.

"Wh..What are you doing to him?"

Priest looked back to see Vivian standing in her bedroom, wrapped in her sheet, looking down at the two men on the dusty yard.

Priest got up to his feet, letting go of Stagger who had died and had frozen look of sheer horror on his face. Priest wiped the blood on his face with his sleeve and trying to ignore the bee-sting like pain in his chest.

"What did you do?!" cried Vivian, who was on the verge of breaking into tears.

Priest was in a loss for words, he couldn't explain what he had done, or how or why. He couldn't say nothing to calm Vivian. And failing to do anything helpful, Priest did the only thing he could, he kneeled down and tied his left shoe.

"What in god's name are you?!!"

Priest got up, he knew that she thought that he was a monster who had just tricked her into sleeping with him and then killed her husband, she didn't realize that he had just saved her life. Vivian fell to the floor and broke down in tears, while Priest walked away, pulling the bullets in his chest out with his fingers as he stepped out onto the dark dusty road.

* * *

**Now**

"Old man... somethin'... special."

Mona kneeled by the washtub and poured in the bucket of blood, resisting the urge to throw up and trying not to pay attention to Priest's rambling.

* * *

**1998**

_New York City_

Much to the restaurant patron's amazement, Priest rose from his seat, despite having been hit in the chest twice only twenty seconds ago.

Priest took a good look at Clemenza; he was as dead as dead could be, having been shot in the head a second before he was. The two of them had met to settle some old scores between each other, and to agree to enter a partnership with him against the Punchinello mob.

It was while he was eating his pasta that he heard Clemenza asking someone, "What the Hell are ya lookin' at, Bitch?", and then he heard the sound of a single gunshot, and before he could look up, he was shot himself. One bullet had struck him in the heart, which had held him back long enough for the killer to get away, if it had been made of silver, it would have killed him, and if it had hit him elsewhere, he would have been able to catch up with the shooter before he or she had a chance to leave.

"Goodbye, Peter Clemenza." said Priest as he brushed the man's face and closed his eyes, "May you be in Heaven at least an hour before the devil realizes you're dead."

Priest stepped away from Clemenza and approached the waiter who stood in place, frozen with shock. Priest slapped him on the face to snap him out of his shock.

"Who did this? Who shot us?"

"It's a miracle! Jesus Christ is alive!"

"Jesus Christ'll have a field day putting you back together if you don't tell me who the fuck just put two in my chest!"

"It was a woman. She was maybe twenty-four, pretty, long black hair." said a man who sat at a table, "Are you sure you're okay, son?"

"Me? I'm number ten." said Priest grimly, "Listen up, everybody. Does anyone know who it was that tried to have me killed?"

No one answered.

"Does anyone know? Every body in this joint is in with the mob, so if anybody knows who this woman was, they'd better tell me..."

* * *

**Now**

"Who... killed me?"

"Shhh." said Mona gently, "The League almost did. You're safe now, you're gonna live."

"Cele... Clemenza..."

* * *

**1952**

_Kaesong, Korea_

The inhuman mechanism in the hands of a hidden North Korean trooper sent dozens of bullets plunging into Priest's back as he covered a young private with his body, Priest gritted his teeth and withstood the pain till the trooper was out of ammo and fumbled for ammunition.

The young private pushed Priest off and aimed his own machinegun at the trooper and fired, sending the enemy combatant to his death.

The private was a young man in her early twenties, Half-Black and Half-Caucasian. The Private turned around to the man who had just saved his life, taking a stream of bullets after he had did something stupid and missed seeing the trooper in the dark of night. He wasn't dead yet, as a matter of fact he was moving a bit. Actually, he was moving normally, he got up to his feet with a grunt.

"You're some kind of fool, son." said Priest.

"Lieutenant Priest!" said the Private, "You're.. you're alive!"

"Hallelujah." said Priest snidely.

"But you just took thirty rounds in the back!"

"You're goddamn right I did. Now, tell no one, or I'll have you dishonorably discharged."

Priest took a look at the now dead Korean soldier, "Damn, you REALLY shot the poor bastard. Nice work."

"Yeah, the gook had it coming."

"Don't say that, son. He was just doing his job, same as you. What's your name, Private?"

"Lee, Sir, Private F."

"English, please."

"Erm, Frank Lee, Sir, they call me Frankie."

"Well, Frankie, we better get back to the barracks. And what happened here never leaves us."

"Sir, Yes sir."

"My first name's Judas, by the way."

* * *

**Now**

"Frankie Lee... I.. I..."

The old butler entered, standing by the door and folding his hands behind his back he asked, "Is he getting any better?"

"He's supposed to, but he's been hallucinating for several days." said Mona.

"Would you like me to take over, Miss. Perhaps give you a chance to freshen up, maybe have a bite to eat?"

"Yeah, thanks, That would be great."

* * *

**November, 1975**

_Dallas, Texas_

Three drunk men in ten gallon hats took their turns firing their shotguns at the long haired hippy who was hitchhiking on his way to Louisiana, hoping to make it to Mardi Gras. They laughed with glee as they shouted out all manners of offensive slurs, but the laughing stopped when the long haired hippy lunged at one of them and ripped his neck open with his teeth.

* * *

**1996**

_Mexico_

The man with the guitar case in the saloon was a juggernaut, completely unstoppable, and danced thought the bar shooting everyman that crossed his path. He had shot priest in the chest with a sawn-off shotgun that tore a chunk out of heart. It wouldn't kill him, but it meant that if he wanted to survive, he'd had to play dead and wait while his wounds healed and his organs grew back. It was too bad, he would have loved to go one-on-one with the infamous Mariachi.

* * *

**1980**

Los Angeles, California

Priest got shot by a car full of gang members in a car that quickly sped off.

* * *

**1969**

_Woodstock, New York_

The Hell's Angel couldn't move a muscle as he saw Priest walk up to him calmly, his face still gone after it was shot off two minutes ago following an argument abut the pope. The biker did nothing as the faceless horror advanced and then buried his fist into his face, shattering his lower jaw beyond recognition.

* * *

**Now**

_Gotham City, Maryland_

Priest sat up suddenly and quickly, spilling some of the blood onto the floor. A terrible headache had him wincing and growling in pain for ten minutes before it stopped and it took him another five minutes for his mind to clear up.

When he was able to properly utilize his senses, the first thing he sensed was an overwhelming smell and Red. The color Red was all he saw, he could hear the wind outside, and beneath him he felt a hard surface beneath his naked flesh, the rest of his was damp, covered in some thick liquid. In his mouth he could taste the rusty taste of pig's blood.

His arms felt sour as he reached to his face, and wiped his eyes enough for him to see. Vision was blurry at first but improved quickly.

He looked all around himself and saw that he was in some sort of stable, a couple of Arabian horses slept nearby. Priest himself was formerly laid in the washtub, completely submerged under gallons of blood. The crimson liquid covered every inch of his body and every strand of his hair.

He wondered what had happened, how was he here, why was he in a tub filled with blood and why did his whole body feel sour. It slowly came to him, finding Josephine, taking that picture, his daring escape that ended with the strike team unloading their machineguns into him, tearing limbs off of him, shattering his ribs and all but killing him. All he remembered between then and now was those horrible nightmares, there were hundreds of them, and they all included the many times he had been shot.

He stood up, feeling great pain and struggled to stay standing then stepped out of the tub, and took a look down at himself, he was in one piece but had grown skeletally thin, his arm and both his legs had grown back, which meant that many days had passed, but not too many days as his limbs were too thin, his knee was thicker than his thigh, simply bones and hardly any flesh and muscles to cover them.

He staggered to the door, feeling pain like as if he was just learning to walk, every step feeling like a heroic effort. Pushing the door open wasn't the easiest thing he had done but he managed to do it. He had failed to consider the possibility that it was daytime outside, but luckily for him, the sky was thick with dark gray clouds that blocked the sun enough for him to walk out without bursting into flame.

The stable was located on the grounds of a massive estate, it was covered in the greenest grass with a mansion right in the middle. He walked five paces before he crumbled to the ground as the air proved to be too cold for him, out the corner of his eye he saw Mona running out of the mansion towards him.

"Mona..." he muttered with raspy voice, Mona picked him up by the shoulder and dragged him by the shoulders back into the stable.

"Priest, you were almost killed..."

"Tell me about it," said Priest weakly and couched, "You should have left me to die."

"Yeah? Well its too late now." said Mona as she tossed an old blanket on top of him to cover his naked body.

"My jacket, breast pocket..."

"What about it?"

"Memory chip, picture... Josephine."

Mona went to where Priest's blood soaked suit was and came up with a the memory chip from the phone Priest stole a few nights ago, it was slightly damaged, but intact.

"I'll be right back, don't move."

"Sure, don't ngrgrr."

Priest passed out for a few minutes, when he regained consciousness he was being hosed down to wash the blood from his body, the water was icy cold and piercing He didn't resist the elderly gentlemen in the suit and smock who was cleaning him, but he was curious to know who he was.

"You've been uncoscious for five days, Sir. It's Christmas Morning." said the man, then aimed his hose at Priest's face, sending the freezing liquid up his nose and waking him up beyond any sleep.

"Merry Christmas."

* * *

Bruce Wayne watched out the window as Mona walked across his ample lawn, holding an armful of Priest's clothes while Alfred Pennyworth, his butler stepped out of the stable removing his smock. 

"So, I take it your friend is going to live?" asked Wayne as he turned around to face Nemo was sat on an arm chair looking guilty.

"Yes. I suppose so. Listen, Bruce, I'm really sorry about all this."

"Nemo, you came here four days ago with your lady friend who forced her way in, holding my butler at gun point, all to save this other friend of yours that was missing half of his anatomy then and has since grown it back. Do you even know who this man you tried to save, Nemo? Do you have any ideas what he has done?"

"Priest is not a saint-"

"He abducted a ship-full of women who had disappeared to god knows where." Shouted Wayne.

"Bruce, I assure you that no harm has befallen them, I saw to it myself."

"Wait a minute. Are you saying that you had something to do with it?"

Nemo sighed.

"Good god, Nemo! What path have you drifted into?"

"You're one to talk, Bruce. You spend your nights dressing like a bat and attacking criminals."

"I protect those that no one will protect, Nemo." said Wayne with conviction.

"And I'm trying to save us all from those who manipulate the world for their own purposes!"

Wayne turned away angrily from Nemo, saying as he looked out the window, "I want the three of you out today."

"No problem."

"Out of my City."

"Are you ordering me to leave the City, Bruce?"

"Yes, I am. You've saved my life before Nemo, for that I will always owe you and you will always be my friend. But I won't have you risking people's lives like this anymore. I want the three of you to leave, I'll welcome you back someday, but never with those people."

"And Priest?"

"I'll let him go just this once, but If I ever catch him in my City again, It'll be the end of him."

Nemo stood up, and contemplated saying goodbye to his old friend, but changed his mind and headed for the door.

* * *

Priest staggered out of the stable, his left arm flung over Mona's shoulders, dressed in his trademark cowboy boots and hat and leather coat. 

"You know, I could carry you in my arms if you want." said Mona as she practically carried him with his feet dragging on the floor, "You're as light as a feather."

"You've already had me hosed down like a pup by some guy's butler, and then you physically dressed me. I'm an old man, please, let me have a scrap of dignity."

Nemo drove the truck that had been collected from a parking lot ten days ago by Priest, the Anti-Matter was still in the back. He pulled up in the middle of the driveway and got out to help Mona get Priest inside before the three of them got in, Nemo at the driver's seat and Mona by the other Window while Priest sat in the middle.

"The Yellow Submarine is waiting for us at the harbor.", said Nemo as he slipped on his seat belt

"We're leaving the City?"

"Yes."

"Good."

* * *

R&R.

I'd liek to Note something that may have slipped you. During one oft he past chapter, we see a a glimpse of Mona's past where she shoots a man in the head and another in the chest, the second one she never sees his face. Which is to say, Mona tried to kill nearly ten years ago, of course, neither know it was the other.


	32. 2008

**Now**

_Gotham City, Maryland_

"Don't tell me you're still keeping the women we sprung." said Priest weekly as his eyes fell on Lee Gaum-Ja, only a minute after the trio of him, Nemo and Mona boarded the Yellow Submarine.

"No, those women are long gone." said Nemo, "This is miss Lee Gaum-Ja. She used to be a part of the Korean cell."

Nemo then went to address Gaum-Ja, saying, "These are Mona Sax and Judas Priest."

"Judas?!"

"시작하지 말라." said Priest sharply, Mona simply smiled in acknowledgement.

"The ride took it out of me." said Priest tiredly, "I think I'm in a mood for a minor coma."

"Would you ladies help him to a cabin? I need to get started working on obtaining something out of the chip."

Mona and Gaum-Ja dragged Priest to a cabin by the arms, as Nemo went the other way to one of his labs, hearing Priest's slurred speech grow more distant as he said, "Must be my lucky day, being helped into bed... by such two beautiful women…. Ow! What was that for?"

* * *

**Six Days Later**

_Somewhere in the South Atlantic Ocean_

"We're...fired?" asked Mona as she stood in Nemo presence in the bridge, while Priest, who had made a full recovery at this point, was lounging on a couch.

"I think we are fired, Cupcake." said Priest, "I gotta say, I'm a mite surprised."

"You have both done an excellent job," said Nemo, "More or less. I had handpicked you because I felt you were the best for the job of uncovering Josephine's identity. Now, we have reached the end of our Endeavour. Miss Sax, your freedom has been earned."

"How'd that work out, by the way? Did you find out who Josephine is?" asked Priest as he sat up.

"Yes," said Nemo as he hung his head, "Yes, I have."

"And?"

"Do you really care?"

"Not really. 'Tell you the truth, If I never see the bitch again, I'll die a happy man."

"I guess we're supposed to be getting off soon?" asked Mona.

"Naturally, though you needn't worry, I will gladly take you wherever you want to go."

"Where are we, right now?"

"Soth-west of south America."

"Can you get me to Los Angeles?" asked Mona.

"Of course. What about you, Mister Priest?"

"LA sounds good to me."

"It's settled then" said Nemo, "We'll be in California within two-to-three days. Until then, feel free to spend your time as you please. There will be a party tonight, to celebrate the New Year. In case I don't see you then, I just want to wish you a happy new year."

* * *

It was twenty to twelve, justt one third of an hour left in the year. Priest walked into the biggest boiler room on the submarine where the party was being held, most of the ship's crew were there, tables covered with food and beverages were set up. Music was being played by a band led by Billy Shears backed up by some other crewmen on electric guitar and drums, while three young men, none older than twenty humorously danced around wearing dresses and wigs. 

He had come to ring in the New Year, Mona had refused to join him, preferring to spend a quiet girl's evening with Gaum-Ja. The two women had struck a quick friendship in the past few days despite the language barrier, and spent most their time together, leaving Priest to heal by himself as he filled his days with sleep and consumption of massive amounts of blood to strengthen his regenerating organs. He was his old self again, his arms and legs back to their natural shape and some serious weightlifting in the crewmen's gym proved his full recovery.

"What would you think if I sang out of tune," sang Shears, rather well, "Would you stand up and walk out on me?"

"Heya buddy!" called a crewman with loudly a horribly rough voice in an American accent, "You're that Priest fella, aren't cha?"

Priest turned around to look at him, he was a massive man, well over six feet and burly, bearded and of advanced age, despite being of daunting physique. He wore a stripped linen shirt and an old sailor's hat.

"Yeah. How's it hanging?"

"So, is that girl of yours comin' or what?" asked the sailor, his voice still as loud.

"Mona? No, man, she ain't comin'."

"Yeah? That's too bad. Say, me and the guys were wonderin' smethin'," said the sailor as he picked up a beer and poured half of it into his massive mouth, "You do her?"

"No." said Priest after a beat, having decided to give the man a break on the count of his age and his all too obvious intoxication.

"Man, I would'n mind gettin' some of that action."

A few crewmen approached the two carefully as they noticed Priest's discomfort, the noise died down as more people took notice of the two. Priest took a sip from a bottle of beer and stayed calm, saying, "Man, you mustn't have been with a woman in a long time."

"Got that right." said the sailor and belched loudly, the stench of which causing Priest further irritation, "Them Korean broads ya sprung were the last we've seen. I thought to myself then, it must be my lucky day! But naw, Cap'n said to keep our hands off 'em, said those broads 'ad to be treated with respect and kindness. Haa! They were animals."

The music stopped as Billy Shears jumped off the stage and joined them as the tension grew.

"Then this other Korean broad comes along and starts walkin' around, doin' nothin', Cap'n treatin' her like she's better than alla us."

"Bruno," said Shears, "I think you might have had too much to drink."

"I ain't had near enough!" shouted Bruno as he picked up another beer, "We work our asses all year long, I say we earned the right for a little tail every now and then."

"Bruno, come on." said Shears as he tried to pull the sailor away, only to be shoved back.

"And now these two broads think they're too good to stay with the likesa us! Man, that really pushed my button. I've half a mind to go there and give 'em both so good ol-"

Priest had had enough, and took the bottle in his hand and shattered it on Bruno's jaw, before burying his knee into the old sailor's groin and flattening him with a couple of punches to the head as he leaned down in pain.

No one moved a muscle as Bruno lay face down on the floor at Priest's feet. Priest took a bottle of beer and opened up, saying, "I'd like to propose a toast."

He raised the bottle high, "Here's to John Doe, male, five-eight, Caucasian, late thirties, died of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest. He was cremated in my place. Cheers."

Priest took a swig by himself as he was met with looks of disgust, confusion and nervousness, he then headed out the same way he came, still holding the bottle in his hand, leaving a room full of silent sailors in his wake.

The Yellow Submarine was motionless and surfaced. Priest stood leaning against the railing on the submarine's conning tower, looking at the great dark ocean, and holding a bottle of beer in his hand.

Priest had hoped he's have some company for once on New Years Eve, and with what had happened, once was not going to be this year.

He didn't give a damn about New Year's, it was just a day, after all. A date on the calendar just like any other, and If he could go through his life, having some company in a day or not, it didn't matter if that day was New Year's Eve.

But then, that wasn't really what was bothering him.

* * *

**New Year's Eve, 1952**

_Kaesong, Korea_

"Aah! Private Lee!" said Priest jovially as Private Lee entered the tent nervously, while he sat at the table holding a hand of cards and biting down on a lit cigar, while several officers ranking lower than him sat at his side around the table, playing poker, "Want to play a hand? Or would you rather give me your money right now?"

"I don't think so, Sir."

"Oh don't be a sour-puss. You know the guys, this here's Marty Crane, Red Forman and Frank Barone."

The soldiers greeted him as the Lieutenant went on, "So, what can I do ya for?"

"I was hoping I could talk to you later, Sir."

"Talk, huh? Something serious?"

"I think so, Sir. It's not related to work, though."

"Well, If it's got nothing to do with killing people, I'm all ears." said Priest as he stood up, "Boys, take ten, when I come back you can tell me all about how none of you has ever seen a woman naked."

* * *

"Well, what's your bother?" asked Priest as he opened up a flask of bourbon and drank from it and he sat down on a tree log in the barracks yard, where no one was close enough to hear them. 

"I want to tell you something about my mom," said Lee nervously, "And where I grew up."

"Ooookay." said Priest, genuinely surprised at the course their conversation was going to take.

"I'm from St Louis, Missouri. Ever been to St. Louis, Lieutenant?"

"I've been to every city in America, St. Louis more than once."

"Ever in the thirties?"

"Errr, Sure, I was a kid back then, but yeah."

"You weren't a kid at all, L.ieutenant"

Priest looked up at Lee angrily and asked, "Where is this going, Private?"

"My last name isn't really mine, it belongs to my mother's husband, old Stagger Lee is what they called him. You see, my momma once met a white man that came into town, back in thirty-two. She never got his late name, he said his first name was... Judas, and he said he was on his way to New York. My momma and her husband weren't on good terms with each other and so, she had no problem with taking him home, kind of taking revenge on her husband for the way he treated her. Anyway, Stagger came home a little bit early that night, just as Judas was about to leave, and when he found him, he put four bullets right into his chest."

All the while Lee was talking, bells were ringing in Priest's head, bringing to the surface long forgotten memories.

"The strange thing was, Judas got up, he killed Stagger before he could kill my momma. And then left, with four bullets in 'em he walked away and got out of town, and never came back. Hell, he may have just made it to New York."

Priest shut his eyes tight as he finally remembered.

"Vivian."

"That's right!" said Lee with glimmering eyes, "This man... This Judas, he was my real dad."

Priest raised the flask to his lips and took a colossal swig.

"I'm on guard duty tonight, and I better get going. Happy New Year, Sir." said Lee as he walked away, holding onto his rifle tightly.

"Happy New Year... son."

* * *

**Now**

Priest shut his eyes tightly, trying to fight back the tears, breathing heavily. Sighing heavily, he finally opened them, allowing a couple of drops run down his cold skin as he raised the bottle of bear upward, saying, "Here's to you, Frankie Lee."

* * *

**New Year's Eve, 1998**

New York City

Mona got into the limo, gasping for breath. It drove off instantly, getting away as fast as possible. The cruel eyed dragon lady in a suit looked at the young woman with a devious smirk.

"So, miss Sax, how is the good Senator Waltzer doing."

"I.. I killed him."

"Good. Two to the chest and one in the head as we agreed, right?"

"I didn't have anytime to shoot him in the head." said Mona nervously.

"That wasn't our agreement."

"It won't matter, Mrs. Horne," said a man in a black suit that sat opposite to Horne, "Dead or not, he won't be in any position to give us any trouble this March."

"I suppose so. I'm going to cut you a little slack this time, it being only your second time and all."

"Thanks."

"Yes, I'm sure you'll do better in the future. I can see it in your eyes, you know; you have the skill, you have the heart of a killer."

Mona remained silent while Horne chuckled and went on, "And if there's one thing Nicole Horne knows, it's kills. Stick with me, little girl. Stick with me and learn, you're on your way to being a professional, a cold hearted killer."

* * *

**New Year's Day, 1949**

_Sumatra_

"Where are you off to?" asked Barbossa.

"There are matters I need to handle," said Nemo as they walked through the port, heading away from the ship, "You?"

"First thing I'm getting is a pint as tall as you. I haven't figured out what'll I do next."

"Listen, if you are interested, I think we should meet again."

"I do not object, when?"

"How about Five years from now, on this day, in London?"

"If you want, we could meet sooner."

"No, I need a significant amount of time to do what needs to be done."

"Fine then, five years from today in London in it. Listen, Nemo, there is something I should tell you."

"What is it?"

"I'm... I'm an Immortal."

Nemo was somewhat surprised, "Well, I appreciate your honesty."

"What? You believe me just like that?"

"Yes. To tell you the truth, Hector, you are not alone."

"Do you mean to say that you've drank from the fountain of youth, like I did?"

"The Aqua da Vida? I had once spent two years looking for it. You must tell me of it when we meet."

"Wait a minute. How did you manage to stop aging if you never found it?"

"Me?" asked Nemo as he walked away, "I sold my soul to the Devil."

* * *

**A Few Days Later**

_Los Angeles, California_

"Well, then." said Priest as he buried one hand into his coat pocket and held a duffle bag with another, "This looks like the end of a terrible friendship."

"What, we're friend, now?" asked Mona with a smile as the two of them stood in a Los Angeles Bus Depot.

"Well, you did save my life."

"Twice."

"Twice, right. What's your plan?" asked Priest.

"I haven't figured it out yet. I think I've earned a little vacation, Nemo gave me a little bit under ninety grand as starting over money."

"Ninety grand? That's what he paid me! Shit, I was expecting some workman's comp for all the beating that I took."

Mona smiled.

"What about you? What's your plan?"

"I've had enough with the east coast for now, I think I'll kick around in LA for a while, see if it fits. I'm officially dead, now. So my former life of crime is done for."

"Well, good luck with that."

"You too, Cupcake."

The vampire and the hitwoman turned away from each other and started walking in opposite directions, away from each other, marking the end of their odd partnership.

"Hey, Mona-" said Priest as he turned around to look for her, but she was gone, the Femme Fatale had disappeared into the crowd.

"Shit," he said as he turned back and kept walking, "Never got around to ask her who Max is."

* * *

**On New Year's Eve**

Nemo sat in the bridge, looking intently at the picture of Josephine that filled the largest screen, as Sgt. Pepper stood nearby in the doorway.

"So, Captain," said Pepper, "Are you going to join the party or will you keep starring at Blondie all day long?"

"Go away." said Nemo quietly. Pepper obliged and left, leaving the ship's captain behind.

"Why?" he wondered, then turned off the display, and opened up an application that enabled him to send a message to anyone with one of the opposition's communication laptops.

_'To: H. Barbossa, M. Raimus, J. Mason, S. Sands_

_Subject: Josephine_

_Let it be known that through investigations lasting a few weeks, building upon the findings of previous cells, the most recent Gotham City Cell comprised of Mona Sax and Judas Priest had finally uncovered Codename Josephine's Identity, providing visual identification. Following this discovery, the Cell had been dissolved and will no longer participate in our operations._

_Codename Josephine's Identity has been revealed to that of Mina Jekyll (nee Murray), formerly known as Mina Harker; member of the first generation of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, previously thought to have disappeared during WWII._

_31-12-2007_

_-Captain Nemo'_

* * *

R&R. 

I will resume in a couple of weeks, Priest and Mona migth come back, though I'm curious to hear about your opinon if they should.

The thing in Korean that Priesy says is 'Don't Start.' or I think that's it, I'm not sure. And if you're wondering what Priest's toast was about, he made a promise to the dead guy that was taking his place afte rhe faked his death to have a drink on his behalf on New Year.

Now tell me the truth, did you see it coming?


	33. Anotations and notes on Chapters 1 to 32

**Chapter 1:**

James Bond is of course the character created by Ian Fleming for his novel Casino Royale and its numerous sequels. The version used here is a continuation of the one played by Sean Connery and George Lazenby, meaning that every Bond film after On Her Majesty's Secret Service is omitted from the timeline of this story.

Felix Leiter is a US-Marine turned CIA Agent, first appearing as Bond's ally in **Casino Royale**.

The Characters in the Diner are our main protagonists, they are Captain Nemo, whom we know, Mona Sax; the femme fatale hitwoman from the **Max Payne** series of video games and Judas Priest, a character based upon a song titled **'The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest**', written and performed by Bob Dylan, tying into one of the minor characters from BLADE II.

**Chapter 2:**

The two armed robbers in the diner are from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, their occupations, nicknames and demeanors remain largely the same.

The equipment used by Nemo to break Mona out is lifted from various Bond films, though most are the ones not considered cannon in this story.

The title of the chapter is the name of an archetype of modern cinema, as well as a staple of film noir and pulp noir. The archetype is that of a beautiful woman, who is also ruthless, cunning and deadly, so the term fits Mona perfectly.

**Chapter 3:**

As far as I know there is not town called Eternity in Minnesota. It is based upon a verse in the Bob Dylan song used as a basis for the character, in which a character asks Judas Priest where will he be and he answered; _'Eternity, though you may call it paradise.'_

Priest counting a roll of tens is a reference to a verse in the Bob Dylan song.

Hannibal King is a character from **BLADE: TRINITY**, his lady friend whom Priest sleeps with provoking King's anger is Abigail Whistler.

Priest's friend Harding is a named after the Bob Dylan album where the song appear, _John Welsey Harding_, released in 1967.

**Chapter 4:**

_THE RED LIST_: A list of 500 people that the League is interested in hiring, should their talents become in demand.

The Yellow Submarine is from the eponymous Beatles song. Who built it and when will be revealed in upcoming chapters.

Sgt. Pepper is named after the Beatles' album _Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band_.

Gotham City is the fictional city that is home to Batman.

**Chapter 5:**

_GOOFS:_ Here, Josephine's assistant is referred to as Darkholm, this happened because I was planning on using Mystique of X-Men fame but changed my mind later. Also, the name of the building changed from Ashgard to Novick, my bad.

The Events of 1902 is based upon the second volume of the comic book series by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neil.

General Marko Raimus is the captain of the ex-soviet stealth-submarine Red October, both created by Tom Clancy.

An important plot point here is that Mona and Priest's predecessors were killed by the League, due to a mole within the opposition.

**Chapter 6:**

Here we learn that Gotham City is located in Maryland. Many comic book writers place it in New Jersey, but I had Nemo, Mona snd Priesr running away from NJ to get to the Yellow Submarine, and it didn't make sense if they had to use the submarine to get to a different city in the same state. The version I'm using of Gotham is that in **BATMAN BEGINS**, which placed the City on the East Coast, so options like setting the story in Illinois where BATMAN BEGINS was shot, or Michigan where many writers have set it, and I couldn't have two Branches of the League in one state, so New York was out. Thus, Maryland.

Here Priest mentions something about his vampire physiology, that his species are immune to the intoxicating effects of Alcohol, meaning he could binge drink for days without ever getting drunk.

Lt. Kip Singh is a character from **THE ENGLISH PATIENT** film and book, a former sapper and World War II veteran.

Dr. Kavita Row is a comic book character appearing in X-Men, the version here is the one played by Shohreh Ogdasheo in **X-Men: The Last Stand**. Which puts the X-Men trilogy of films in the future of this story, roughly in the year 2010.

Here we see the Arab-Anti-League for the first time, headed by Robert Barnes, the American, a former CIA Agent who disobeyed orders and tried to rescue an idealist Arab politician, to no avail, played by George Clooney in **SYRIANA**. The other three are Sayid Jarrah, from the tv-series **LOST**, Fareed Almasty, a character that is an expansion on the character played by Omar Sherif in the Revenge of the Pink Panther, who is the only one among an multinational group of Assassins who manages to survive being killed by Inspector Jacques Closeau, then there us Aisha Fadhil, an Afghan rebel appearing in Andy Diggle's comic book series **THE LOSERS**.

_GOOF:_ he narrative here is told from Sayid's perspective and that he muses that the League were behind the plain crash. At the time I wrote that chapter I had not seen season 2 of Lost, as thus there is an inconsistency between the TV show and this story. So forget I said anything and let's assume that Sayid is working with the opposition out of personal interest, and that the League had nothing to do with the plain crash.

**Chapter 7:**

Jabulon; James Bond's codename, is the name of the Freemasonic representation of God, also know as the Great Architect of the Universe.

Bond, or Jabulon, is aided by seven branch Directors, this is meant as a religious allegory, as God is often portrayed as having seven Archangels under him. The four masterminds are meant to represent the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, one should note that one of which has sold his soul to the Devil. This is meant as a literary device, to characterize the opposition as a vicious rebellion, it is not mean to make anyone uncomfortable or offend anyone of faith.

Note that the name of the Building where the League is located is now called the Novick Building, and so it always will be.

The young woman working for the League in New York is Harmony Kendell, a vampire\secretary from Buffy and Angel. As will be later revealed, she is not what she appears.

Project Phoenix, the core of this story, is mentioned for the first time here.

**Chapter 8:**

Max is a NYPD cop that Mona befriended and once was hired to kill (Yes, both at the same time), whom she feels great affection for, but couldn't follow through with the relation because she had to go to prison.

Priest reveals something new about his vampire-abilities; he can scale smooth walls like a spider.

The Ship's Captain is Popeye.

_GOOF:_ The Ship's name is the Black Rock, named after the ship from LOST season 1. Later it changes to the Gloomy Gus, which I believe is the name of Popeye's ship in that Robin Williams movie.

Priest here finds some marijuana with Popeye and starts smoking it, though just like Alcohol, it doesn't affect him.

**Chapter 9:**

The ship is revealed to be transporting illegal immigrants, Priest reacts violently when it is revealed that some will be sold into prostitution.

Priest reveals that he can speak Korean, later revealed to have been the result of him fighting in the Korean War.

We learn something new about Priest every chapter, don't we? Here it is revealed that he is a survivor of the TITANIC. Here he has his name taken by an immigration officer whom he later meets and works for in the D.R.I.. Priest also displays brief infatuation with a fellow survivor, a girl name Rose Dawson, the protagonist played by Kate Winslet in **TITANIC**.

In the end, Nemo reveals that rescuing the Korean women wasn't out of the goodness of his heart, not entirely anyway, as one of the passengers is someone who knows a thing or two about Project Phoenix.

**Chapter 10:**

Priest mentions working for the DRI again, I should explain. The DRI is the Demon's research Initiative, a government agency from Buffy that was started during WWII, that specialized in the study, capture and combat of demonic entities, and even utilized paranormal creatures like Priest and the vampire Angelus to their advantage.

St. Jimmy (renamed to James 'Jimmy' Saint here) is the main character from Greenday's American Idiot rock opera. I used the character after suggestion of fellow writer Kenshin H.Phoenix of Lava 777. He is a classis rebel without a cause, though here he has found a cause he's willing to fight for.

Kong Tower is names after King Kong.

The Brothers McManus are the Irish-American vigilantes from The Boondock Saints.

GCPD Lt. James Gordon starts investigating Priest and Mona's actions. He is one of the few good cops in Gotham and Batman's closest thing to a friend. Played by Gary Oldman in BATMAN BEGINS.

Bollock is also a Batman character. He comments on the recent rise of superheros, like the Question (a comic character created by Jack Kirby), the Bat(Man) and various superheroes running through New York, such as spider-man, the x-men etc etc.

**Chapter 10:**

Barbara Gordon is James Gordon's niece, yet another Batman character.

Here we meet Josephine's right hand woman, Mandy, a character from seasons 1, 2 and 4 of the tv series **24**, the surname Hughes is something that I added by myself.

Here we learn some things of note, like that Josephine doesn't like James Bond and finds his affair with a vampire somewhat pathetic, which will make sense later on. Also, she appears here to be in a relationship with Mandy.

The monorail feature prominently in BATMAN BEGINS.

Arronax is the french professor and main protagonist of Jules Verne's 20000 leagues under the sea, which also included Captain Nemo, as are many other details here.

**Chapter 11:**

Nemo meets with an ally in Hyde Park, named after Edward Hyde. This man is John Patrick 'Jack' Mason, the protagonist from **THE ROCK**, played by Sean Connery, an SAS and SIS Operative.

During their conversation we learn that Project Phoenix somehow involves a war in south east Asia, and that the two are in league with a man known as Barbossa. Thus, the four men behind the opposition are fully revealed.

Mason refers to Operation Succubus. It is meant to be the process of inserting a mole into the league that actually works for the opposition.

At the end of the chapter, Mason and Nemo head for the Winchester tavern to have a drink. The Winchester is from **SHAUN OF THE DEAD**.

**CHAPTER 12:**

Lucy Wagner is a psychic, and is able to do many strange things, one of which is to venture through an alternate reality that allows her to reveal a distorted, incoherent vision of the future. The Basis for the character is the Beatles song 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds'.

Lucy's flying through Marmalade skies filled with Diamonds is a reference to the Beatles song.

The battle on the beach is of slight importance.

Part of Lucy's abilities and duties as part of the Berlin Cell is to control a man of terrible nature, this man's identity will be revealed later on.

Lee Gaum-Ja is the anti-heroine of the Korean film (Its a great movie, you should see it) **SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE**. The gun she uses is from that movie as well.

The three brothers are of my creation.

Mr. Paik, director of the Seoul Branch is the rich industrialist and mobster who is the father of Jin from LOST.

**Chapter 14:**

Gotham's football team is called the Knights, a reference on Batman's nickname; the Dark Knight.

A ticket scalper tries to sell Priest tickets to a Ziggy Stardust concert. Ziggy Stardust is the main character of David Bowie's influential concept album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.

**Chapter 15:**

Priest flashes back to WWII era New York when he was recruited to work for the government Agency known as the DRI, the man who recruits him is the same man who took his name upon arriving in Ellis Island decades Ago. The DRI men's methods and ruthlessness are based upon episode 101 of Angel, titled 'Why We Fight', in which the vampire Angel is similarly recruited to work for the government.

Upon waking up, Priest is taken to Sal Maroni, the City's current reigning emperor of organized crime. A character from the Batman comics, appearing in THE LONG HALLOWEEN story arc, which is excellent, by the way.

_GOOF_: Maroni's consigliore mentions remembering an Army Major called Priest in Korea, who once tried to save a Private Lee from enemy combatants. The error here is that Priest is later revealed to be a Lieutenant during the Korean War.

Maroni's henchmen; Tom, Dick and Harry's name are a reference to the expression 'Every Tom, Dick and Harry'.

**Chapter 16:**

Nothing mcuh here. Except that Alberto is a batman character, Angela is my creation, though.

_POSSIBLE GOOF_: The Book that a mobster is reading is titled 'The Crazy Wide Forever' and is by Jack Kerouac. The author's name is supposed to be Sal Paradise, Kerouac's author surrogate in ON THE ROAD. 'The Crazy Wide Forever' is one of the chapters of the upcoming League comic book, which features Sal Paradise.

_Chapter 17_:

Tom, Dick and Harry are revealed to be brothers with the last name of Tomasi. Tomasi is a reference to Rollo Tomasi, the name that the protagonist of **LA CONFIDENTIAL** gives to the never-arrested killer of his father.

Harmony Kendell is working for Mason, which makes her a good guy, sort of.

Mernae H. Watts is an incorrdct anagram of 'Whatsername', the main character's love interest from Greenday's American Idiot.

The title of the chapter refers to a track from **AMERICAN IDIOT**.

Major Boothroyd is more widely known as Q, James Bond's former gadget master. Here we see that he has left the service and is now an independent contractor. He also seems to have grown to dislike Bond to a great degree.

The device Nemo commissions Boothroyd to build is something that will be revealed later on, as soon as I figure out what would be most awesome.

**Chapter 18:**

Priest hallucinates while unconscious, during which he meets an Astral Projection of Lucy Wagner.

The second man Mona kills is later revealed to be Judas Priest.

Punchinello and Lisa are minor characters from the first Max Payne video game.

Nemo converses with two technical specialists; Mr. Hunting is the protagonist from 'Good Will Hunting', and the second is Forrest Gump Jr. now grown up, from 'Forrest Gump'.

Qumar is the fictional persian gulf nation from **THE WEST WING**.

MacGuffin will be the focus of the second act of the story. His name is a that of a literary device, in which an object is used to drive the plot, like the Suitcase from Pulp Fiction or the letter of transit from Casablanca.

**Chapter 19:**

Nothing important here. Priest reads a Ziggy Stardust CD booklet.

We also flash forward a few days and learn that in some way, Judas Preist died in New York.

**Chapter 20:**

Metropolis is of course home to Superman.

Priest offers a brief lecture on the various types of vampires, encompassing the Dracula Vampires, the Buffy Vampires and the Blade vampires. We also learn that Priest was never human and born a vampire.

Billy Shears is a character from the Beatles' SGT. PEPPER album.

**Chapter 21:**

The Arab cell are about to launch an operation against the League to rescue a fallen comrade, who is revealed to be Aladdin Sane, from David Bowie's eponymous song.

Priest strongly objects to being called a rapist.

At the end, Mona and Priest head to New York, where we know Priest will meat his end.

**Chapter 22:**

Jimmy and Priest cross paths during a staged armed robbery in which Mona shoots Priest, making it look he died. Max Payne of the eponymous video games arrives to investigate. Max is Mona's would be lover, seeing him shakes Mona to a degree.

Not only were Mona and Max involved but Priest have met Max when the latter used to work under cover and the two seem to have bad blood between them.

Priest promises to give a toast to John Doe who is going to replace him, as a sign of gratitude.

**Chapter 23:**

Priest displays discomfort about Mona questioning him about his lifestyle and serving in Vietnam, both will be dealt with down the road.

Nemo comes to join Priest and Mona as the plan to uncover Josephine starts coming together.

**Chapter 24:**

Mona and Nemo discuss Priest. The latter theorizes that Priest's companion, a Korean War veteran known as Frankie Lee was his lover. He is actually his son.

Raimus refers to the ranks of the male members of the Arab Cell, Barnes used to be a Colonel before joining the CIA, Sayid was a Lieutenant and Almasry was a Major, despite all three being out of the service for a long time. It goes to show us what kind of man Raimus is, that he's a soldier and military man to the core.

First appearance by Batman, though he is not mentioned by name.

We learn that Bond has a wife.

**Chapter 25:**

Preist uses his intuition and enhanced sense to learn that Mandy is gay, a fact that appears useless at the time. Also, she has raw lamb chops in her fridge, but no cooking material and appears to sustain herself on a diet of takeout.

First appearance of Geroge Costas and Hector Barbossa, the first is based on dear reviewer Master of the Boot, a vicious shotgun-totting Greek enforcer.

Hector Baebossa is the once damned English Pirate from the **PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN** films, now immortal after bathing in the fountain of youth following the events of **AT WORLD'S END**.

George Litton is Robert Wagner's character from the original pink panther film.

Nazik al-Malae'kah is an Iraqi female poet.

Aladdin Sane is here revealed to have become quit mad (Aladdin Sane A lad inSane, get it?), due to prolonged psychological and physical torture. Despite his mental faculties, he is able to say something of interest, that the world as we know it will end in five years, something he learned while he was no doubt investigating on his own. This is a reference to Davis Bowie song, _Five Years_, after which the chapter is named.

**Chapter 26:**

_GOOF_: Cummings is supposed to be Messervy. Cummings was the director of intelligence at the time, while Masservy is a character based upon Cummings found in the James Bond books, where he is known as M.

Boothroyd tries running Nemos' order for the first time to less than stellar resaults.

Igor Algernon is an OC, based upon Algernon from _'Never Say Never'_ and Igor of the Frankenstein films.

The line "Now! Pull the switch, Igor!" is a reference to the Frankenstein films.

First apperance of Cate Archer, Bond's wife, the protagonist from the **NO ONE LIVES FORVER** video games.

First appearance of Michael Costas, brother to George Costas and bodyguard to James Bond.

James Bond become Sir James Bond, KBE.

**Chapter 27:**

The wrecked ship is the Black Pearl, from THE PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN films, that has bounced between Captain Barbossa and Captain Jack Sparrow.

There is a slight parallel here to Robinson Crusoe, where an Englishman meets a savage on a deserted island. Of course, Nemo is in no way a savage and only appears like one after living on a deserted island for so long.

The titles of the chapter refers to the Tom Hanks movie which deals with a man with a dilemma similar to Nemo and Barbossa's.

The young actress that is attracted to Mona is Valerie Page, from V for Vendetta.

We find out that the loot that Mason order his men to steal is Anti-Matter, a highly powerful and unpredictable mineral.

Lucy Wagner dreams of meeting a pair of odd creatures in her sleep, the pair will return later on.

On her way out, Mona bumps into Josephine, though neither realize it.

**Chapter 28:**

Barbossa suggests using sea-turtles to repair the Black Pearl, which is a running gag in the PIRATES movies.

Bond signs a request for the prolonging of the detention of the Scottish prisoner in Qumar, whom we met in chapter 18.

Jane and John Smith are from that movie, you all know it!

Priest treats the man in the restroom quit violently, next chapter we learn that the man is a rapist.

**Chapter 29:**

Barbossa dubs the repaired ship as Calypso, after the sea-goddess of the same name from PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN: AT WORLD'S END.

The R.H. Kane building is named in honor of the creator of Batman.

Senator Regan McNeil is the grown up once-possessed child from **THE EXORCIST**.

Senator John Waltzer is from **the MISSON: IMPOSSIBLE** movie.

Rick Blaine is from **Casablanca**.

The OSS is the predecessor to the CIA.

The Flashback set in Morocco is a continuation of the events of chapter 15.

Edmund Gilmore, who come from old money, is supposed to be related to the family from Gilmore Girls.

Josephine and Priest share a moment, and is a final hint to her nature.

Priest here has the presence of mind to take the piece of the phone he really needs and tucking it away.

**Chapter 30:**

Three of the SWAT team members are named after members of the Police, a british band that Sting was part of

Sgt. Williams who has a chainsaw is a reference to Ash Williams of evil dead fame.

**Chapter 31:**

Stagger Lee is from the eponymous song by Nick Cave.

The New York flashback is a continuation of Mona's flashback in chapter 16. It features a character named Clemenza, who is meant to be related to Peter Clemenza from **THE GODFATHER**.

Frankie Lee is from the Bob Dylan song 'THE BALLAD OF FRANKIE LEE AND JUDAS PRIEST'.

The butler is Alfred Pennyowrth of Batman fame, played by Michael Cain in BATMAN BEGINS.

The Texans shooting at Priest, who in 1975 is a long haired hippie is a reference to Easy Rider.

Priest flashes back to Mexico where he find himself in a bar, badly wounded by El Mariachi, who usually attacks drug dealers and smugglers, such as Priest.

Priest flashed back to Woodstock, where he fights a biker who insulted the pope. This is a reference to Garth Ennis' **THE PREACHER**, which has an issue where a vampire recounts.

Priest being covered with Blood is supposed to signify something, but I ain't telling.

And here come Bruce Wayne, who reveals that Nemo once saved his life why he was traveling the world, before being imprisoned in China in Batman Begins.

**Chapter 32:**

We see Gaum-Ja, whom had been on the Yellow Submarine since chapter 13.

The drunk sailor is Bruno, Popeye's archenemy. Here he expresses his wish to force himself on Mona, prompting Priest to knock him out, though Bruno was obviously pretty harmless. This is the fourth time that Priest gets uppity after mention of rape, and goes to show you he has serious issues with that particular crime, a matter which will be explained later on when we learn more about Priest's past.

Billy Shears sings part of **'Witha Little Help from Friends**' from the Beatles' _Sgt. Pepper's_, in which Ringo Starr sings the song _as_ Billy Shears.

Also, Priest makes good on his promise to John Doe in chapter 22 and toasts him.

Priest flashed back to when he spends New Years in Korea, and plays poker with a bunch of sitcom dads such as Red Foreman from **That 70s Show**, Frank Barone from **Everybody Loves Raymond** and Marty Crane from **Frasier**, all these characters have established that they have fought in the Korean war on their respective shows. It is here that Priest learns that Frankie Lee is his son from Vivian, Stagger Lee's wife.

Mona remembers one New Year's Eve when she performed her third Assassination, that of Senator John Waltzer that failed and only paralyzed him. Nicole Horne is her employer in the first **MAX PAYNE** video game.

Nemo remembers arriving with Barbossa in Sumatra, and the deal they made to meet years later in London. We also learn how did he manage to prolong his life.

Mona had previously promised to tell Priest who Max is, but both have forgotten.

And finally, Josephine is revealed to be none other than Mina Harker\Jekyll\Murry.

* * *

**Next Chapter: **We pick up a few months later, with apperances by new characters, old characters and a better plot!


	34. City of the Fallen

**Ten Weeks Later - ****March, 2008**

_Los Angeles, California_

Getting into Club Midnite wasn't easy, as the bouncers required all patrons to pass a unique test, and those creatures that managed to get in were not the easiest going of crowds. However, Nemo was a resourceful man with useful instruments and was this able to make his way in. He moved across the club as the band played on stage, brushing past creatures of light and darkness and categories that didn't fit into either, past the bar and into a tunnel that led him to a large room where patrons gathered barking in frenzy as they look into a concrete pit in the center, fifteen feet deep, at the bottom of which something of great interest was going on.

Nemo forced his way through the crowd, finding a foothold by the railing and looking down, he saw what the focus was on; two battered men, barefooted modern day gladiator battling to the death, without a shirt on their backs or mercy in their hearts.

* * *

**Two Months Ago**

_Crawley, England_

"This is it then? This **IS** Anti-Matter?" asked Boothroyd as he stood in a storage room aboard the Yellow Submarine.

"Yes it is." said Nemo as he stood to his side.

"Is it safe?"

"It's in dormant form, you can smash it with a hammer and expect nothing to happen. Though I wouldn't do that, just to be on the safe side."

"I see. Look, Nemo, the device is costing more than I thought."

"Money is no problem."

"I realize that. It's just that... Well, I was wondering if you could pay me with some of this Anti-matter."

Nemo glared at Boothroyd, who quickly said, "Not all of it! Just a small quantity to examine and study, ten pounds would be enough."

"Alright, ten pounds only. When will my machine be ready?"

"Well, I have some other jobs to attend to first. But I'll return to you as soon as possible."

"Well, then, you won't mind If I keep the anti-matter here, for safety."

"Hehh... Of course."

* * *

**Now**

_Los Angeles_

The blue skinned fighter charged at his opponent, flattening him with a clothesline and kicking him in the ribs as he lay on the concrete bottom of the bit.

"What can you tell me about the fighters?" Nemo asked a platinum blond man in a black duster.

"The blue bloke is called Michael Corvinus." said the man in a cockney accent, as stuck a cigarette between his teeth and lit it with a metallic lighter, "The other guy is called Kaplan, he's the reigning champion. For the past month he's fought all kinds of beasties. Now he's getting his arse handed to him by Boy Blue. Whoever made a bet on the Smurf is gonna end up a rich man unless Kaplan gets his act together."

"And did you bet on Kaplan?"

The man took a drag and exhaled as he glared at Nemo, and said nothing.

* * *

**Ten Days Ago**

"A month ago, if someone had told me I would be sitting here with General Marko Raimus, discussing the terms of my selling my soul, my laughter would have made the world deaf." said the man as he looked sadly at the street outside.

"I want nothing of your soul. It's what you know that matters." said Raimus as they sat in a small, mostly empty cafe.

"I want one-point five millions dollars, untraceable... And transport to a safe location."

"We'll give you eight-hundred thousand," said Raimus, "And I'll recommend a good travel agency."

"Deal's off, then."

"Good, go back to the League and when they realize you've been using company assets for your own purposes, they'll hang you by your own intestines, if you're lucky."

"But then, what I know will go the grave with me, and you will waste your men's lives and the money I could have had to find out what I know, to no avail."

"Oh, really?" asked Raimus, "What an official of your rank knows can never be that Important."

"That's what you think. But when you're work the system, like I did, you learn a few interesting things, like I did."

"Things like what?"

"Names, Places, Dates, Big Ones."

"This has been a waste of time."

"Try me, what do you want to know?"

"Phoenix."

The man froze, finding that he had faile faster than he thought he would.

"That's aiming too high."

"I thought so." said Raimus as he stood up and then started walking to the door.

"I know some things."

Raimus continued walking, so the man at the table stood up and went after him, "I know it's big, alright? Top secret, for your eyes only, priority one type of thing. Okay?"

"What is it?"

"I hear it's... War." said the man as he looked around himself, "A War. Engineered by the League."

"When? Between whom?"

"Look, I don't know that! I can learn, just give me time. Two weeks."

"Alright." said Raimus, "One-Point-Two, and facilitating your escape. No upfront."

* * *

**Now**

_Los Angeles_

Kaplan buried his fist deep into Corvinus' gut, and followed with a hail of punches that sent his opponent staggering back from one end of the put to the other. The champion's streak didn't last long, as Corvinus grabbed hold of of Kaplan's hand as it came down on him as Corvinus was on his knees.

Kaplan soon found himself flying across the pit, hitting his head on one of the walls and smearing it with his blood.

* * *

**A Week Ago**

London, England

"Miss Watts," said Mason as he an Mernae sat in the back pew in St. Clement's cathedral, a few minutes prior to the afternoon service, "What do you have to report?"

"Very little, I'm afraid." said Mernae, "The usual, rumors, scattered names."

"She's been with him for over four months, he's bound to eventually drop her like a dirty habit."

"I don't think it'll be any time soon. Her being a vampire holds a special appeal to him, and she's looks likes he just finished secondary school and always will. Anyway, if it comes to it, there are methods we can use to ensure the longevity of their affair."

"Like what?"

"My kid sister has been dating this guy, Harry something. He's a practicing magician, does potions and things like that. Potions to cause certain feelings, like Lust, for instance."

"I'd rather we not resort to that sort of thing, just press her to look harder. What's the best lead we have?"

"He's attending a funeral tomorrow."

"Whose funeral is it?"

"Bill Tanner, he used to work for M if MI-6 back in the day. Didn't he?"

"I believe so, I had met him on occasion, he was a good man. What had become of him?"

"He was committed to a resting home years ago, he died of leukemia. Do you think it's worth following up on?"

"Probably not."

"Sir, if you don't mind I'd like to pursue this on my own, I'll just have a quick look, just to make sure."

"If you think you're up to it."

* * *

**Now**

Los Angeles

The mob circled around the pit roared with savage frenzy, watching in joy as the two men tore through each other, though at the moment the tearing was one sided, as Corvinus was crouched atop Kaplan's back, pinning him down and twisting his arm against the shoulder blade painfully, Kaplan screamed bloody murder and tapped-out frantically after a minute of agony.

The crowd roared, angered at the champion's defeat and celebrating the new champion. Several of the crowd raised their fists with their thumbs extended downward, as in some ancient roman arena, ordering the victor to put the defeated out of his victory.

The victorious gladiator didn't oblige the mob's desire, he shape-shifted, his skin turning to flesh color and his canine features growing human. As he stood a new man, he extended a hand to Kaplan, who hesitantly accepted it and was helped to his feet, as he held his damaged shoulder.

* * *

**Later**

The man known as Kaplan walked to the door in his damp and dark low rent apartment as he heard a persistent knocking from the outside.

"Hold on, you bastard!"

He looked through the peep-hole and his eyes widened, he quickly opened the door and looked at his visitor.

"Nemo?"

"Priest," said Nemo, "Or is it Kaplan?"

George Kaplan, or Judas Priest as he was actually known, "How ... Who.. What the Hell?"

"May I come in?"

"Might as well." said Priest as he stepped away from the door.

"Thank you. I saw you in the pit, I had never seen you fight before."

"Shame you didn't see me the last nine-times when I actually won."

"Your opponent seemed to be quit formidable, though merciful at the end."

"Yeah, whatever, want a drink?"

"Of course. Make it-"

"A whisky?"

"You remembered." said Nemo with a smile, recollecting the two's first encounter in a bar in Minnesota.

"Comin' up." said Priest as he headed for his fridge and took out a bottle of whisky and two glasses out of the cupboard.

"It's an interesting name; George Kaplan, is it random or does it have any significance?"

"It's an old C.I.A. Alias," said Priest as he poured two drinks, "used on missions where an Agent joins up with an Agent from a foreign Intelligence Agency. I once used back in the sixties, in East Berlin when I worked with an MI-6 Agent who called himself Arlington Beach, that's probably their George Kaplan."

"Yes, I recall reading something like that in your service record months ago. I also recall something about you single-handedly tracking down and apprehending a C.I.A. Agent that defected to the soviets."

"Yeah, I would have gotten a medal for that, but then they would have had to admit that I existed. Look, I can tell this isn't a social visit, what do you want?"

"I thought I might be able to convince you to return back to my employ."

"Forget it," said Priest as he handed Nemo a glass, "I'm not going back to Gotham till they clear out all the Batmen, Killer Clowns, Mobsters and the League."

"You want have to go to Gotham, the job isn't in the United States."

"Alright, I'm intrigued." said Priest as he sat on his old brown couch stained with beer and some blood, "Pray tell."

"I want you to find someone missing for a long time, who has been presumed dead."

"You think he's not really dead?"

"I have my doubts."

"Nemo, last time around you wern't the treasurer of the Priest Appreciation Society, why are you trusting me with this?"

"The Josephine affair required a lot of restrain, which you lack. This time, you might get away with a little impulsive actions. I've had my men research the best man for the job, and you made the short list. You can think on your feet, you're not afraid of getting your hands dirty and you don't charge too much."

"So, I'm crazy and cheap. That's why you want me?"

"Precisely."

"Well, the answer is still no."

Nemo wasn't pleased and dropped his friendly demeanor, "Why not?"

"I don't trust you, Nemo. Last time you kept me on a need to know basis and I hate that routine. I hated it when I was with D.R.I., I hated it when was with the Army and I hated it when I was with the C.I.A., if you expect me to trust you, thing are going to have to change. I want to know everything I please, only then will I trust you."

Nemo paused to consider, then grudgingly accepted, saying, "Fine, what is it that you want to know?"

"Who is we? What's the nature of your outfit?"

"There are Four of us, the architects behind the opposition, each of us ir responsible for a number of activities, I for example, handle the hardware as well as manage to operative Cells, such as the one you used to be part of."

"Who are the other three?"

"I can't tell you that, I can only tell you what the League already know."

"Hummph. That's fair, I guess."

The blond man in the duster came through the open door, stopping in his place a she saw Nemo.

"Oh, I didn't know you were entertainin'."

"S'alright, Spike. This here's Nemo, he's cool. Nemo, Spike."

"Pleasure, gov'nor." said Spike as he nodded at Nemo, then reached into his coat and pulled out a bundled brown paper bag that he tossed at Priest, "That's your cut, as agreed. That's a little under one hundred grand, don't spend it all in one place."

"Thanks. Tell Angel I said hi."

"Cheers, then."

Spike left, leaving Priest to count his money and Nemo in a state of confusion.

"Priest, what just happened?"

"My plan came together, is what happened."

"Meaning?"

"Fighting in the club does't pay all that much, just five grand a fight, twice a week. The gambling is where the real money is.

"After about a month of fighting werewolves, mutants, zombies and assorted weirdos, waiting for a proper opponent, Mike Corvinus came. Rumor has it that he's some Werewolf-Vampire Hybrid, real badass too, though deep down he's not a real beast. At this point, the odds were strongly in my favor, and I was getting bored anyway, so all I had to do was call up my old buddy Spike and give him some cash, and asked him to place a bet on the other guy. After that, all I had to do was hold back and try not to fall asleep."

"That's brilliant."

"Not really; separating the fools from their money is easy business. Sometimes I wonder how the two get together to begin with. Now, back to... what was I talking about? Oh, yes, what's the deal with you being born in the eighteen hundreds and how come you're still alive?"

"How did you know?"

"Does it matter? The fact that you failed to mention that you're ageless and ancient is the point... How is it that you're Immortal?"

* * *

**Next Chapter:** We catch up on what's happened to our favorite femme fatale, we witness the events of one cold night in London when a certain science pirate and a certain prince of darkness meet, and some other marginally interesting things. 


	35. A Man of Wealth and Taste

**1906**

_London_

It was an old neglected building, two stories tall, with a dirty storefront window displaying nothing on street level and a sign above the door that read **'George Spiggot, Broker'**. On the upper floor were nine windows, the one in the middle was lit, indicating that someone was present even at this hour, waiting.

Nemo stepped towards the door, feeling slight pain in his knees after the long walk in such a cold night, and suddenly noticed three hideous dogs sleeping by the door, with jet black fur that made them blend into the night. Carefully, he pushed the old door open, despite its size it responded by swinging lightly, reveling the interior, there was an old reception desk with a wooden chair behind it and an issue of yesterday's news paper on it, next to a gas lamp that cast an ominous yellow light that didn't allow Nemo to see the rest of the room clearly, not with his sight, but did allow him to see the stairs.

Walking across the old floor boards, he headed for the stairs, and started climbing the creaky steps, with every step asking himself if it was his imagination, or did the steps sound like distant screams and feel like flesh. He soon found himself on the upper floor, standing on the landing, in a corridor overlooking the lower floor on one side and the nine doors on the other.

Each of the nine doors had a nameplate on it, and one of them was slightly ajar, and from the opening golden light leaked out; deceptively warm and blatantly inviting. He walked slowly towards it, resisting the urge to read the name on the doors, knowing that what he'd read would not please him. Though on the last door he glanced unintentionally, before looking away, but not before the name was imprinted in his mind, 'Avarice'.

He pushed the door open and walked in, looking down at the ground, prolonging his blissful ignorance of what lay beyond. The first he saw was the softest Persian carpeting he ever saw, he raised his eyes up and looked at the business office before him, massively ample, appearing to somehow be larger than the floor, itself lavishly furnished with all manner of oak and mahogany, its walls bearing some painting he'd seen in museums around the world, at one end was a bureau with two chairs by it, while on another was a burning fireplace, next to which stood a tall man, looking into the fire and holding a glass of wine.

"Prince Dakkar," said the man warmly, yet with a powerful voice, as he turned around to look at his visitor, "How nice of you to drop in."

The man wore a finely tailored Savile row suit and sported a handlebar moustache, his hair was auburn and his eyes were penetrating green.

"Are you.. him?" asked Nemo hesitantly. The man chuckled.

"Him?! Ehehehh. Oh, I do apologize, It's just when people say him, they usually refer to the other chap."

"I mean are you the D-"

"Please allow me to introduce myself, George Spiggot. Pleased to meet you, hope you don't forget my name. Now, would you care for a drink?"

"No. I mean, that is..." said Nemo, pausing abruptly as he noticed that the glass in the man's hand had vanished mysteriously, simply disappeared into ether.

"Well, then, shall we get down to brass tacks?" asked Spiggot, "The Weather must be hellish for your brittle bones. Please, make yourself comfortable."

Spiggot and Nemo sat around the table.

"Now, what can I do for you?" asked Spiggot.

"I'm dying..." said Nemo.

"And you'd rather you weren't, naturally? Well, you've come to the right place, we can very easily help you with your dilemma, at a price of course. Now, are you aware of the price in question?"

"Do you think I would come here without knowing?"

"Quit so, but... Are you sure this is what you want to do?"

"Yes."

"Very well, we can cure your ailment." said Spiggot, "But sooner or later, you'll find yourself back where you started."

"I'm aware of that, that's why I'd like to avoid the end all together."

"Well, it would be unwise of me to help you with that, I'll never get paid If I did. Of course, its not death that you are afraid of, its the long periods preceding it, the months of agonizing and withering, isn't it?"

"Yes." said Nemo in a defeated fashion.

"Well, then. Seeing as how we are in agreement, I don't see why we should waste any more of your time. It just so happens that I have a contract laying around here."

Spiggot leaned down, reaching into the bottom drawer of his bureau, and took out a a single sheet of paper.

Nemo was handed the contract, and he started reading it, in an attempt to delay the process, but his eyes were tired and weak, and the words were blurry to him.

"Here," said Spiggot, "I am aware of your deteriorating vision, so let me read you the contract. I have it memorized, you see.

"I, Prince Dakkar of Bundelkund, also known as Captain Nemo; hereafter known as ... the Damned, while of sound mind and mostly sound body, consent to relinquish my Immortal soul to George Spiggot, Esquire, in exchange for restoring the Damned's health, the reduction of age, and fully halting the aging process.

"It should be noted that should the Damned sustain lethal injury in the future or terminal illness, the Damned will die, and his soul will be remanded directly to Hell, without judgement."

Nemo couldn't stop his hand from trembling, and kept starring into the contract.

"There's no rush, my Prince," said Spiggot as he crossed his legs, "It is an important decision and I understand if you need some time to-"

"I need a pen."

"Sorry, that's not the way we do things."

Spiggot placed a small dagger at the edge of the table.

"A few drops should do." said Spiggot with a devious smile, as a flicker of red filled his eyes for a split second.

Nemo took the dagger and cut his palm, he ignored the pain as he pressed his palm to the creamy paper, letting his blood leak out right on the dotted line.

"Excellent." said Spiggot a moment later, "Welcome onboard. It's not too awful, not as the _other company_ paint it, anyway."

Nemo took his hand off the contract, allowing Spiggot to collect the contract now stained with crimson and placing it in his 'outgoing' box.

"I'll have Greed notarize it in the morning," said Spiggot, "He's my solicitor, you see. You should feel the effects soon, and don't worry about your hand, we'll take care of it, as a _welcome to the Bank _sort of gift. Now, we will have a drink, and I would be very offended if you refused me the honor."

Spiggot raised his hands with two glasses filled with red wine, two glasses that had appeared out of nowhere, and handed one to Nemo, who hesitantly accepted it, knowing that he had no choice.

"Here's to your health." said Spiggot before taking a sip, Nemo did the same.

"You know, Captain, you have quite a future ahead of you, filled with intrigue, triumph, betrayals and loss; it has the makings of a great saga. Why, there will come a day when you will hold the fate of the world in your hands."

"What do you mean by that?"

"You will know, when the time comes. And when it does, I trust you to do the right thing."

Nemo dropped his glass, it hit the wet cobblestone and shattered, the wine flowed through the grooves, mixing with the melting snow.

Somehow, he was back at the East London docks, looking out at the bay where the Nautilus was docked. Nemo looked down at his hand and saw the wound he had cut, now sealed though it still looked fresh. It was all real.

The Damned walked away from the shattered glass and spilt wine, walking towards the Nautilus' loading bridge, walking away from London.

* * *

**Now**

_Los Angeles_

"Well... Shit!" cursed Priest as he placed his beer on the floor, "I'm no choir boy, Nemo. But damn!"

"There, now you know." said Nemo, "What now? Will you do it?"

"Look, give me a day to think it over, alright?"

"Of course. I'll stay in touch."

* * *

**Two Days Later**

_Mazatlan, Mexico_

Mona was running out of patience, she had heard someone walking up to her as she lay on a blanket on the beach at sunset, wearing a swim suit and enjoying the sun with her eyes closed behind her wide sunglasses. This person, whoever it was, had been standing next to her without saying a word for the past minute, and she could feel his penetrating look on her body.

"Listen, you little pervert, you got about five seconds to go away before your eyes, then you'll be in a world of trouble."

"It'll be five seconds well spent, cupcake."

_'Cupcake?'_, thought Mona, the accent was familiar, as was the voice. Slowly she opened her eyes and saw Priest standing next to her with his old hat on his head and a smirk on his face.

"Priest?" she asked as she held up a hand to shield her eyes from the sun.

"In the flesh, babe. You look good, and not just because of what you're not wearing."

"Priest?!"

"Yes, Priest! Judas! Judas Priest!"

"How did you find me?" asked Mona as she grabbed a towel to cover herself with.

"Well, we split in LA, you said you were going on vacation, you're a fugitive convict and you were sitting on Ninety-grand in cash. All I had to do was check out the best beaches and I lucked out on my first."

"Well, good for you, and you tracked me down because?"

"I want to talk."

"About what?"

"Once I start there'll be no pausing, better learn about it then. I'll meet you in the bar by the Hotel in a couple of hours."

* * *

**A Few Days Ago**

_London, England_

"I went to the retirement home where Tanner died, I managed to get an old photo album that was about to be thrown away." said Mernae in Mason's apartment as she reached into her purse, "I'll find that this will be especially fascinating."

She handed Mason a photograph, yellowed and old and held together with tape, the back of it was dated 1973. It depicted a group of distinguished looking men, there were nearly twenty of them, and as Mason scanned through the faces, he recognized some, there were James Bond, Bill Tanner, a few other faces that he recognized and one he knew quit well.

"Gideon Macguffin."

"Precisely, Sir." said Mernae, smiling wide with excitement.

"1973," mumbled Mason, "That was around the time bond started working for the League. And these other men, most of them were associated with either the League or MI-6. This supports the long standing rumors of MacGuffin being involved with the League."

* * *

_Mazatlan, Mexico_

"I'm sorry if I sounded rude earlier." said Mona, who had gotten dressed and went to meet Priest in the hotel's car, sitting around a table in the corner, drinking margaritas, "Its just that I thought I had gotten away from it all. I wasn't expecting to see you or anyone from my past."

"You were rude? I didn't notice."

"So, what have you been up to?"

"Underground boxing for the most part, beating the pulp out of tings that eat their wounded. Until a couple of days back, that is.

"I'm back working for Nemo, I know what you're thinking. But we've settled our differences and made a deal that things would be different."

"What are you going to be doing for him this time?"

"Find a guy who is presumed dead, only Nemo thinks he's anything but."

"Who?"

"Sir Gideon MacGuffin, OBE, PhD, and a bunch of other three letter initials."

"And you two think you can do it?"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence. I used to do this for a living, back in the sixties. You keep forgetting I used to be a bonafide spook."

"Alright, So why are you telling me this?"

"I may be a former professional, but I'm a little out of practice. And I need someone to watch my back, and there's no body who has ever watched my back like you did."

"I don't know, Priest."

"Look, the money's good, better than last time. And we're not going to be working out of a condemned building in a godforsaken City like Gotham. We're going to Europe! You ever been to Europe? It's great! I don't know why I ever left! Seriously, there's places in London you wouldn't believe, and I'm not talking about the touristy stuff. It'll be great!"

"Priest, that's not it."

"What, then?"

"It's just that when I was in prison, I would dream of one last chance, a way out after which I would leave all the killing behind."

"Um, but you **DID** kill, I remember."

"Only to keep you alive, Priest, and only because Nemo and I made a deal."

"Mona, come on..."

"Sorry, Priest. My killing days are over. I'm retired, finished, done. I'm just a tourist now."

Priest's smirk disappeared, his face took on a blank expression as he stood up from the table and placed a few dollar bills under his empty glass.

"I'm leaving to London Tomorrow night at Eight. If you decided to catch up with me, look me up in the Winchester Tavern, you'll find it in East London. If you never come to London... Well, I just hope you have a nice life. Goodbye, Sax."

* * *

**Next Chapter:** Priest (and Mona, maybe) arrive(s) in London. They (or He) get caught up to speed, armed and equipped and then unleashed on the unsuspecting city of London! Also, another chapter in the decades long partnership between Nemo and Barbossa is told. 


	36. Landing in London

**Three Days Later**

_London, England_

Priest looked through the rain soaked window of the cab as it drove through the streets of East London, heading towards an old pub known as the Winchester Tavern.

"Have the weather been like this for some time?" asked Priest, adopting a London accent, which was to make him as less conspicuous as possible.

"Aye, it's been raining non stop for the past week."

"Any sign as to if it'll clear up anytime soon?"

"Un-bloody likely, gov'nor. It'll be like this all month, I'd wager. Say, where have you come from?"

"I was in Mexico last."

"Oh, I bet it's warm all year long there, ennit? Would be nice to be there right now, S'trewth! You ben living there long, then?"

"No, mate. I've been living in the states for some time. A very long time, actually."

Priest was satisfied with the cabbie's forecast of the foul weather lasting for long, the rainier it stayed, the cloudier it got, and the cloudier it got, the more he could get out while it was daytime.

Priest had hoped Mina would show up, he waited long for her, up until the final boarding call. When it was clear where Mona preferred to be, Priest boarded his Oceanic Airlines flight. After several long hours of listening to the cries of the adjacent passenger's baby wail on and on, he found himself in the world's dreariest city, all alone.

* * *

Priest sat hunched over the bar, one of his arms supporting his head and resting by the elbow on the old wood.

"Oy," Priest called, "A Pint of Bitter and be quick about it."

"Yes, Sir." Said the Bartender.

"Say, have you seen a Yank round here? Blind, my age?"

"I've seen a dozen Americans, a few were quite thick, none blind though."

"Oh, forget about it, then."

The barman placed the pint before him within a minute, and as Priest wrapped his hand around the glass and prepared to raise to his lips, he found a great Dane coming up to him and barking at him.

"Bloody Hell!" said Priest as he flinched, accidentally spilling some of his beer on the bar.

"Marmaduke!"

The dog stepped away from Priest to join its master, a black-haired man of forty wearing sunglasses indoors, obviously blind for that reason, his companion and a stick he held in his hand.

"Sorry about Duke, buddy," said the man in an American accent as he felt his way to the bar, "Damn canine smelling. He must be able to tell there's something different about you."

"You know, If I wasn't who I was, that wouldn't such a nice thing to say." said Priest.

"And are you the man you're supposed to be?"

"Yes, I am." said Priest, adopting an American accent.

"It's pouring outside." said the blind man as he sat in the bar.

"Cats, dogs, dragons and wolves riding said dragons."

"You must be Judas Priest, you can use your little accent if you want," said the man as he extended his right hand, Priest shook it while the dog quietly sat down by the bar.

"Sheldon Sands, I'll be the closest thing to help you're going to get in this town." said the blind man, then called for the Bartender, "Hey Shaun, do you have the bag I gave you?"

The Bartender picked up a messenger bag from under the bar and slid it to the two men, though none touched it.

"You will have to forgive Shaun if he lied to you earlier, we have security measures, you see. Open the bag," said Sands, which Priest did, "You'll find one of our lap-tops, I trust you know how to sue it. It's programmed so that you can use it to contact me or Nemo, but no one else. Don't use it to look at porn.

"Also you'll find a file on everything we have on Gideon MacGuffin, in the red folder you'll find the most significant, including a recently acquired photograph of him in the early seventies, standing next to James Bond, who as you know runs the League of Extraordinary gentlemen.

"We know for a fact that he worked for the League in the past. And that he was the brainfather of a top secret project dubbed Phoenix, which we want to know more about. Hence our need for finding MacGuffin.

"In the outer pocket you'll find a credit card and five-hundred euros in cash. That should cover your expenses, use it wisely. You'll also find in the second pocket a Walther PP9 as well as a silencer."

"I don't use guns." said Priest.

"That's amazing, but keep it anyway. Now, go get yourself someplace to stay in for the night and report back to me."

Sands got up, tugging on the leash in his hand, Marmaduke sat up and started leading his master out.

* * *

Priest starred at the ceiling as he laid in the bed, fully clothed, his hands behind his head, deep in thought.

He had recognized the building in the background of the picture instantly, it was the Reform Club, on the south side of Pall Mall. He himself had drank tea in its rooms over a century ago, and was present when Phileas Fogg arrived in the nick of time, proclaiming that he had traveled around the world in seventy-nine days.

He was, as he told Mona, out of practice, and didn't even have the amount of leads to pursue it if he was in top form. He was in over his head.

He wasn't worried, though, he had one lead, and permission to act as he saw fit. He'll soon make his way to the reform club and start investigating.

* * *

**New Year's Day, 1954**

Barbossa leaned against Westminster Bridge, looking out at the river and smoking his pipe, before checking his watch once again. He wasn't surprised, he never expected the man to show up, after all, lots of things can happen in five years, especially when you're a man such as...

"Nemo!" said Barbossa as he felt someone approaching, it was indeed the Indian mariner, still the same as he last saw him, though he did shave his beard and tied his long hair back in a ponytail.

"Hector." said Nemo as he shook Barbossa's hand, "I'm glad to see you've made it."

"I thought I owed you as much." said Barbossa as the two former pirates started walking away.

"So, what have you been up to?" asked Nemo.

"Oh, this and that. I've been living in Greece mostly. You?"

"Traveling, trying to track down old friends who were indebted to me and asking for help. Tell me, are you still without ship?"

"'Fraid so. It's a changed world, Nemo, the likes of us are out of our depths. And it's not like I can just commandeer a ship of my fancy, like in the old days."

"Well, what If I can do something about that?"

"Ah! So this is what our little reunion is about, then. What did you have in mind?"

"It just so happens that I might replace your Black Pearl. I'm afraid it's not a galleon, but it just might do."

"Alright, now I'm intrigued. Pray tell, Master Nemo."

"When I first started working for the League, the man we were working for managed to acquire the blueprints to my submarine, he even managed to assemble eight replicas. Our team was betrayed by our M, he planted bombs on My Nautilus, but we survived. We ventured to Mongolia, where he had set up his operations and destroyed all that he created.

"The thing is, if his replicas were any good as my original, there is a good chance that some, or even all of them had survived the explosions. I believe that somewhere, below massive amounts of snow and rubble, the Nautioloi are perhaps intact."

"And you hope to salvage anything you can find for your use, rather than go through the expenses and the trouble of building a new one?"

"Yes."

"That's a plan of the likes of which only a loon could conjure and only a fool could hope to see fruitful. Let's do it! But... we can't do it alone, can we?"

"That's what I've been doing for the past five years, I've been gathering the talent for such a mission. But we need to transport."

"Well, I'll see what I can do. Who are these mad souls willing to help us and when will they join us?"

"We'll collect them all on the way to Mongolia. There are dozens of them, here in London, along the African coast and in Arabia, engineers and warlocks and all manners of Extraordinary Gentlemen."

* * *

**Now**

"Mister Stuart?"

Warren turned around just about he was about to unlock his car door, having walked out of the reform club after finishing his duties for the day, the man calling out to him was of his mid to late thirties, with slightly spiky black hair and noticeable stubble, he wore blue jeans, a green shirt and a brown leather coat.

"Mister Stuart?" asked the man once again.

"Yes, and whom would you be?"

"I'm afraid you don't know me, my name is Kaplan. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions."

"Sorry, It' too late."

"It'll only take a second."

"Fine, then. What is it?"

"It's about members of the reform club, Bill Tanner, James Bond and Gideo-"

"You're not asking me to divulge information of our members, are you?"

"What if I am?"

"You'd find yourself gravely disappointed. In what capacity are you asking? Who do you work with?"

"I'm just a curious individual."

"Well, Mr. Kaplan, this is the end of our conversation." quipped Stuart as he opened his car door.

"Look, I don't want to bother you any more than I already have," said Priest as he leaned by the driver window as Warren started the engine and switched his headlights on, "What will it take for us to be able to talk like proper gents?"

"A warrant," said Stuart, "Of course, you are not with the police, and I happen to be on good terms with the Chief Constable."

Warren switched into reverse and hit the gas pedal, sending his car shoot backwards, the front tire running over Priest's foot as it did.

"YOW!" Priest yelped as Warren's car turned and drove away, leaving Priest hoping in his place as he stood in the vacant car park of the Reform Club with a crushed foot.

* * *

**Next Chapter: **Priest is kind of a psycho, but an efficient psycho. Also, Raimus meets in Tunisia with his snitch and learns how horrible Phoenix is.

**R&R.**


	37. Gentlemen of the Reform Club

**One Day Later**

_London_

Stuart walked through the parking lot, as he often did when the Reform Club was closed and he had finished minding his duties, with his briefcase in one hand and his other reaching for the keys in his pocket to unlock his car door and drive home, to a nice meal and perhaps a glass of finely aged wine before going to bed.

He dropped the briefcase on the passenger seat and sat behind the wheel, inserted the key into the ignition and turned on the engine, switched on his headlights and looked into his rear view mirror to see if it was safe to back up.

To Stuart's horror, two eyes stared back at him in the mirror, they were bright black eyes, burning with mischievous anger.

Warren tried to say something, probably call for help, but before he could, a powerful hand forced damp rag onto his face, he was forced to breathe the fumes, and the word _Chloroform_ barely managed to register in his mind before he passed out.

* * *

_Tunis, Tunisia_

"Two Coffees, Black!" said the man as he sat at the same table as General Raimus, in the same cafe where they had met two weeks ago.

"You seem excited." said Raimus.

"You'll never guess what I found out, you Russian nutjob!"

"Watch your place, you vile and treacherous cretin, remember that your future is dependant on how pleased I am with you."

"I want to renegotiate our deal."

"Impossible. The Deal is one-point-two, we agreed on it."

"I want one-point-eight."

"Then this has been a great waste of time, my solace is that you won't live long enough." said Raimus as he stood up.

"Sit down. You do not even know what is it that I know."

"What is it that you know?"

The man smiled smugly, "The general description of Phoenix, and the man who can fill you in on all the rest.

Raimus looked around himself and pondered for a second, before sitting down and asking, "What man?"

"The man who thought Phoenix up in the first place." said the man as the two cups of coffee arrived.

"And I suppose you won't give me his name until I have you paid and happy?"

"No, I'm a generous man, and the name alone is useless as long as you don't know where he is. The man's name is Gideon MacGuffin."

"MacGuffin?" asked Raimus, letting the name register in his mind, "MacGuffin is dead."

"If you say so." said the man, still pleased with himself as he raised his cup of coffee to his lips and drank.

"Aren't you going to drink your coffee?"

"No, I quit it. It's nothing but herbal tea these days."

"Whatever, you're still picking up the check."

Raimus wondered if all Nemo and Mason's theories of MacGuffin being still alive had any credibility to them, still, if this was true, then it was useful, it was a major lead in regard to finding out what Phoenix is about.

Raimus raised his eyes to the man and asked, "Can you wait for a couple of..."

The man's eyes were bulging, he was reaching for his tea and loosening it, in desperate need of air.

"Good god, man, what's wrong?!"

The man was starring at his cup of coffee, he then collapsed to the floor and started shaking violently , an amount of mucous and vomit shot from his mouth onto the floor.

"Raimus..."the man said weekly.

"Someone, get a Doctor!" Raimus yelled out before stepping to the man's side, taking off his jacket and placing it under his head for comfort.

"Just wait... Help is on the way."

"Phoenix... is..."

"What is it, man, what is Phoenix?"

"Phoenix is... war... pes- pestilance... f - f- f - famine..."

The man was overcame with whatever poison that now ran through him and threw up once more, this time he vomited pure blood, and once he was done, there was barely any life in him anymore.

_"Phoenix is Death."_

And then he died.

* * *

_London_

Stuart's slowly regained consciousness, his vision improved and his mind cleared and he could see that he was on the dirty ground under some bridge in the middle of the night, with no sounds of man, automobile or animal. His car was parked nearby.

"You're up, that's good."

Stuart turned to look at Priest, whom he knew as Kaplan, emerging from the shadows. He said, "I guess I won't have to give you mouth to mouth."

"Help!" screamed Stuart in sheer Horror.

"Scream all you like, sunshine, we're kilometers away from civilization."

"What do you want?"

"My son back, I want to feel someone's warm touch and whisper telling me it'll all be okay."

Priest crouched down by Stuart and continued, "You can give me none of that, but you can give me answers. Yesterday I tried to be civil and ask for them politely, and all I got was my foot crushed. I happen to like my foot. Today I'm going to use a different, more hands-on approach, and if you continue to act like a tit, you will happen to find my foot wedged up your arse. Savvy?"

"You will never get away with this!"

"I've gotten away with doing worse things to more important people. And what difference does it make if I'm in prison or not when you won't be able to... well, I haven't decide what I'm going to do, but I don't think you'll wipe your own arse in the near future, that is if you keep holding out on me."

"Fine, fine, I'll do whatever you say."

"Ace." said Priest as he sat down with his back to the damp wall next to Stuart, "You knew Bill Tanner, right?"

"Yes, I knew him."

"James Bond?"

"Yes." said Warren uneasily.

"How about Frank Costello?"

"Who?"

"Frank Costello, do you know him or not?" asked Priest angrily.

"No! I never heard of him!"

"How about Gideon MacGuffin?"

"MacGuffin? He's long time dead, I know him."

"Good, Costello was just a trick question. So that I know you're not just telling me what I want to hear. In what capacity did you know the three?"

"They are all members of the club, since decades ago, from before I was in charge and was just a member."

"Do you know about the League?"

Warren starred at Priest for a moment then hung his head, nodding to the affirmative.

"Good, that'll make matters easier. Now, I want to tell me how about the three, what were they up to, MacGuffin specifically."

"What do you want to know?"

"Bond and Tanner were SIS, what did they have to do with the League, and what did MacGuffin do with them?"

"During the late sixties, after Bond's first wife was killed, he had become too unruly for MI-6, the foreign office was growing too tried with his methods and decided to let him go. Tanner used to liaise between The League and MI-6 those days, he arranged for Bond's transfer."

"What about MacGuffin?"

"He was a friend of Bond's from Eton, he was a chief intelligence analyst with the League, he endorsed Bond's transfer, he liked his style and thought the League had use for a man like him."

Priest was surprised at the amount of information Stuart had.

"And how is it that you know all that?"

"I was a League informant, a lot can be learned about the direction of British Politics by someone in the reform club."

"Alright, so then what happened?"

"That was out of my depth. Whatever went on between them was none of my business, even Tanner wasn't let in."

"That's not good enough, chummy."

"I overheard them mention something about a Project a few times, apparently they were in agreement on the fundamentals but differed on how to execute it."

"This Project, what was it?"

"Again, none of my business, just bits and fragments that I've overheard over the years."

Priest paused for a moment to reflect.

"Does Bond still frequent the club?"

"Not as often, just once a month. And when he does we barely speak."

"Why is that?"

"I no longer work with the League, these days with all the new technology, having an informant is obsolete when a thimble-sized device can do the job more reliably."

"How about MacGuffin and Tanner?"

"Tanner kept attending to meet with Bond about business till Tanner retired in the mid-eighties. MacGuffin stopped coming in eighty-three, his and Bond's relationship had deteriorated by then and they appeared to never be on good terms."

"Why?"

"An alleged encounter between Bond and MacGuffin's wife, but to tell you the truth, I think it was over the Project. MacGuffin once lost his temper and loudly yelled at him. He accused Bond of trying to hijack his work."

"So, this Project was MacGuffin's brainchild."

Priest turned his head and looked down the road, and stayed silent for a minute, during which Stuart was on his nerves, as he was killing himself, wondering what would he ask next and if he'll live through the night. Stuart got tired of waiting for Priest who seemed to be deep in thought, and started talking again, hoping to please the man who had the power over his life and death.

"MacGuffin did return to the club, late in his life, he met Tanner many times in a few days. I think he said that he was scared for his life, the very last time, he met a man called Edward Temple. A week later, he left on vacation to America, another week later, he was dead."

Priest didn't appear to react to anything Stuart was saying, and half a minute later, he stood up and walked to the car, opened the driver's door and took out his messenger bag which was inside.

"I told you everything I know, please let me go." said Warren in fright.

Priest reached into his bag and pulled out the gun that Sands had given him. Stuart's eyes widened as he saw Priest's finger on the trigger.

"Please! I've told you everything!"

Priest aimed the gun at the rear tire and pulled the trigger. A loud bang resounded through the night and the tire burst.

"You get to die another day, squire." said Priest as he put the bag's strap across his shoulder, placed the gun in his coat pocket then took out Warren's car keys and tossed them to the trembling man on the ground.

"Right now, you're going to get your spar tire out of the boot and get your car mobile again, by the time you're done, I will be long gone. You'll never see me again."

"You're not going to kill me?"

"No, disappointed?"

"But... I know your name, I've seen you!"

"Heh, you're very bad at being a hostage." said Priest, "You have **A** name. Besides, you don't work for the League anymore, and if you do tell them about our little talk, they'll be too busy torturing you for spilling the beans to come after me."

Priest turned around and walked calmly away, leaving Warren Stuart and his burst tire alone.

* * *

**Next Chapter:** The hunt for Sir Gideon MacGuffin leads Priest to the Londoc Criminal Underworld. Also, Nemo is a ladies man. 


	38. Scallywags

Now

London

"MacGuffin as watched over the years as Bond rose through the ranks, eventually outranking him, he knows he has his sight set on taking over Phoenix and he knows he can't stop him. Bond knows that he can never really do with Phoenix as he pleased while MacGuffin is around, MacGuffin knew what Bond thought, probably before he even Bond thought about it himself. Seems unreasonable for a man in Macguffin's shoes to pack off for a nice boating trip. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" asked Priest as he talked to both Sands and Nemo via his lap top, as he sat in a small room of a shady hotel.

"MacGuffin's faked his death." said Nemo.

"That's what I'm thinking." said Sands.

"Same here." said Priest.

"Good work, Priest, do keep it up. Investigate this man, this Edward Temple whom MacGuffin had met prior to his apparent death. Mister Sands, I trust you to provide intelligence."

"Will do, Captain. Sands, out."

Sands disappeared from the screen as he severed his connection.

"Priest, are you sure you can undertake everything by yourself?"

"I'll tell you when it gets too much."

"Well then, goodnight."

"Goodbye."

"And Priest..."

"What?"

"Nice accent."

* * *

**Ten Weeks Ago**

_Off the Coast of Okinawa, Japan_

Lee Gaum-Ja and Captain Nemo stood aboard the ship's conning tower, watching the sunrise from behind the horizon.

"How is your Japanese?" asked Nemo.

"Rusty."

"Well, Mister Hanzo speaks Korean very well, so you shouldn't have trouble communicating with him."

"Mister Hanzo is our... your ally in Japan, isn't he?"

"He is, we are long acquainted, and you can think of him as your ally as well. You are one of us, after all."

"Perhaps."

"Mister Hanzo will have much to teach you about the League's activities in the Pacific Rim, among other things. Be sure to show proper respect and try to cooperate with him as much as possible."

"I will pay him as much respect as he is due. Tell me, Captain, when will I return to Seoul?"

"As soon as we gather new members for your cell, we can't have you working by yourself."

"It seems like it's been a lifetime."

"It does, doesn't it? I don't like it any better; we haven't had seven operating cells to match every Branch of the League for the past year and a half. Two years ago we had seven cells, plus the London groups."

"Why do you suspect that is?"

"Isn't it obvious? We have a rat in our ranks."

"_'Rat'_?"

"I'm sorry; I meant we have a spy with us, reporting to the League, where his or her allegiance lay."

"You seem to be comfortable revealing a lot to me. The man who spoke Korean, what was his name?"

"Judas Priest."

"Yes, Judas said you kept him in the dark. Why are you being honest with me? What if I was the 'Rat'?"

"I don't know. You seem trust worthy."

"Is it that, or is it because of what we did the night you sent Judas and Mona away?"

Nemo fell silent, in a complete loss for words.

"I'm sorry; I should not have spoken about it."

"No," said Nemo, "Don't be sorry. We were going to address it eventually, I though so the morning after, but I couldn't bring myself to bring it up, and you didn't raise the topic. So I assumed it wasn't an issue.

"The fact is, Miss Lee, what happened that night, what we did, it was beautiful. But..."

"We can never do it again, I understand." said Gaum-Ja as she leaned over the railing.

"I don't mean to sound so callous. It's just that I'm not in a position in my life to be involved with anyone in a love affair."

"Don't worry, Nemo, I am not some little school girl who can't distinguish her urges from love, not anymore, anyway. We both needed it; it was great, as you said. We shall discuss it no more, there is no reason to."

Gaum-Ja stepped over to the open hatch-door, and said as she stood at the threshold, "Don't worry, Captain Nemo. It really does not matter."

She then walked down the stairs.

"Please..." said Nemo, in a voice lower than he intended it to be and thus went unheard as Gaum-Ja continued to descend into the bowels of the Yellow Submarine.

"Call me..." said Nemo as he found himself alone, "Call me Dakkar."

* * *

Priest crackled his fingers, none at a time, as he watched the stunning blond woman from a distance with great resentment. 

She looked back at him from across the busy night club, and started walking in his direction. Priest leaned back on the couch and crossed his arms, a part of him wishing to get away from her as fast as possible.

She stood right in front of him, and placed a bottle of blood on the table before him.

"Mister Priest." she said.

"Josephine."

"You don't look happy to see me."

"Well, you did try to have me killed."

"I was hoping you wouldn't still be mad about that."

"No, it's all water under the bridge."

She sat down right next to him, crossing her legs she starred at him; he sat there trying to ignore her penetrating looks, feeling his icy blood warm up just a bit.

"I... I didn't say you could sit down."

Josephine leaned over to him, her face inches away from his, he could feel her surprisingly warm breath on his neck.

"What is it that you want?"

* * *

**Now**

_London_

Priest sat up from the sofa, alarmed at the sudden and loud beeping coming from the laptop. With a muddled head and a groggy disposition he staggered to the lap top, his feet aching as he had went to sleep with his shoes still on.

Priest pressed the 'Accept' button, Sands appeared on the screen.

"Priest? Where were you?"

"Having a perfectly good dream that may have turned erotic. What's the score?"

"I got the low-down on Ed Temple. He's dead."

"Bugger."

"He was killed following a gang war years ago. If you want to pick up the trail, you'll have to go after his successors."

"Right."

"Four years ago, a million pills of ecstasy were stolen from Serbian war criminals in Amsterdam. Ed Temple was a high society crime lord; he tried to trick a young Turk into getting him the drugs and leaving him with nothing. The Turk turned the tables on him, had him killed and walked away with all the money. That Turk is now the Big Kahuna of all things Drug related in London"

"Tell me about the Turk."

"They call him the King. He hangs around the Stoke Park Club. He's a reasonable guy, so just play it cool and try not to step out of line and maybe he'll help you."

"Yeah, I'll pay him a visit as soon as it starts raining."

"No. We have an associate well tied with the underworld, his name is big Chris Jones, he'll set you up. You just sober up and wait to hear form me."

"I'm not drunk, I'm never drunk, I was just sleeping."

"Whatever, I'll send you the files."

"Ace."

"And when you do get to meet him, don't pack that gun I gave you."

* * *

**Two Days Later**

_London_

Big Chris Jones was a money lender and independent criminal, well respected and feared in the underworld, a dark haired man of daunting physique and almost hound-ish features. Upon meeting Priest he had informed him that he and Sands had met many years ago during the first gulf war when Jones was with the Royal Marines and Sands was still with the CIA. He then took him to the Stoke Park Club, an exclusive golf club on the outskirts of the city, where he was introduced to and left in the company of the King.

The King was a man of Forty, Blonde and blue eyed and with a powerful jaw. He sat behinds his table in one of Stoke Park Club's rooms, dressed in Seville-Row's best, flanked by four of his lieutenants.

"I understand your situation, Mister Kaplan. I sympathies, I really do." said the King, "But what is it that you expect me to do?"

"I just need you to point me in the right direction." said Priest.

"What makes you think we have any idea where that is?" asked Gene McGuire, one of the King's men.

"Well, you did kill him." said Priest bluntly, which made everyone flinch for a bit, "Look, you already searched me when I came in, you know I'm not wearing a wire.

"The people I work for are very interested in knowing what Gideon MacGuffin and Eddie Temple talked about in the Reform Club, you people can help us with finding out, upon which my people will be very, very grateful."

"Who do you think you're talking to?" asked Terry, a Turkish man who sat two seats away from the King, "You think you can pay us to do your dirty work, fuck off!"

"Now, Terry, such language's not necessary." said the King, then addressed Priest, saying, "But Mister Kaplan, we have discussed all we could possibly discus. And unless you can come up with a good reason for us to help you, you'll find that you have outstayed your welcome."

Priest stood up, feeling frustrated, contemplating attacking the five men, for all the good it'd do, but deciding against it.

Instead, he simply reached into his pocket and took out a pair of sunglasses that he broke in half and dropped one piece on the table, then walked away and out of the club, leaving the five gangsters to ponder what was supposed to be meant by that gesture.

* * *

"No Cigar, huh?" asked Sands as he and Priest conversed through the laptop. 

"Unfortunately so." said Priest, "Still; we'll just have to make helping us seem more appealing."

"How do you figure that?"

"I've worked for drug dealers for over twenty years, Sands. You want anything from them; you have to make yourself in demand."

"You want to bait the King into wanting to help you, I understand."

"A Hit. We pinch a great amount of merchandise, and when word gets to the king, he'll maybe want to make a deal."

"How will the King know its you?"

"I got that taken care of. It'll have to be big enough to be noticed, but not big so that every thug in the city will be coming after me. Ask Big Chris to snoop around."

"You got it."

* * *

**Next Chapter: **Priest does what Priest does best, crossing paths with an old enemy of his.

**R&R.**


	39. Highwaymen

**One Day Later**

_London_

"We're on, Priest." said Sands through the laptop, "I got you a target."

"Alright, Lets hear it."

"Cannabis, fresh from Jamaica. Street Value of One Million-Euros. Think you can handle that?"

"Yeah, I can do it. What kind of Intel do we have?"

"Not much, but we know who knows. A small time hood called Alistair Harper, you squeeze him and he'll tell you. The Boat is coming in through Liverpool, you should hit them there. How is your Scouse accent?"

"Funny. Are we sure it's the King's gear?

"Positive. I'll find out who owns it, but I need some time."

"No need to bother yourself, it doesn't matter who it belongs to. I could use another set of eyes, to be on the look out."

"I'll try and get you someone reliable. The boat is coming in no later than tomorrow night, I'll send you what I already have. Sands, Out."

* * *

**Days Ago**

Captain Nemo sat in his chair facing the monitors before him, three of which were switched on and displayed live footage of his three associates. Jack Mason, the former spy and handler of the New York Cell as well as head of the intelligence wing, Hector Barbossa; captain of he Black Pearl submarine, handler to the German and French Cells, General Raimus; captain of the Red October, handler to the Cairo and Caracas cells.

The subject of this four-part video-conference, which wasn't usually held as most communications were two-sided, was the recent attempt on the life of General Marko Raimus.

"If they knew it was Marko whom the Deputy-Head of the Tunisian Station was meeting with, the League would have blown up the whole cafe." said Barbossa, "It is clear that they realized their man was disloyal and decided to terminate."

"I agree." said Mason, "They probably thought Marko was some random criminal. We caught the mother of all lucky brakes. The League's Intelligence gathering capabilities are strongest in the Middle East."

"The matter is settled, then." said Nemo.

"It is," said Raimus, "But there's still the matter of what the man told me. He described Project Phoenix as death, pestilence, famine and plague."

"The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." said Mason, who was the only marginally religious man among the four.

"Precisely. Also, one of my operative, Mister Aladdin Sane had disappeared many months ago, pursuing a lead on his own related to Phoenix, and when we found him last year, he was driven mad after all the torture he endured, the only thing he could say is that the world will end soon. My Friends, I fear that Phoenix may be even worse than any of us imagine."

"Has your operative said anything since?" asked Nemo.

"No, he's recovered enough to leave his room on occasion and eat regularly, but he is still silent as a grave."

"Are you saying he's still aboard the Red October?"

"Yes."

"If he's so far gone as you say, wouldn't committing him to the care of his family be more suitable, perhaps even more helpful for the poor soul?" asked Barbossa.

"Mister Sane is an orphan, he has no one but us, and I can't risk the League picking him up again."

"Why not hand him over to me?" asked Nemo.

"I bed your pardon?"

"Cozy Carlisle, one of my cooks, is a former psychiatrist. We can rendezvous and you can hand Sane over to me, he can assess his mental state, perhaps even help him."

"Out of the question. Aladdin Sane is absolutely paranoid, he believes us all to be one of the League's mind games. Plucking from his surroundings and transferring him to a company of strangers can only do him harm."

"Alright, what if I you allow Carlisle to board the Red October, where he can help Mister Sane. How do you find that?"

"Agreeable."

"That's settled, then." said Nemo, "What's the next order of business?"

"The team you have handling the MacGuffin affair." said Barbossa.

"There is no team, just one man. What about him?"

"That's my point, I thought you said you were using the team that uncovered Josephine as Mina Jekyll, not half of it."

"Prior to departing to London, Priest visited Miss Sax and tried to convince her to join him, she refused."

"You still shouldn't have sent him alone."

"Now, Barbossa," said Mason, "I specifically asked Nemo to recruit Priest because his records indicated he was the best for the job."

"Priest's records are decades old, Jack." said Barbossa, "MacGuffin's whereabouts take position higher than Josephine's identity on the League's chain of priority, they'll likely be quit ferocious in preventing us from finding it. And last time we used Priest, he almost got killed and he would have been killed if not for the woman."

"Good points," said Nemo, "After Priest left to London, I tried to track down Miss Sax and convince her myself, but she had disappeared. And Priest is not alone, he has tactical and intelligence support from our Intelligence wing, represented by Mister Sands.

"My advice to you is this; don't worry about Priest, he can take care of himself and I believe he may be the man to find MacGuffin."

* * *

**Now**

_Liverpool, England_

Help had come in the form of Chris Jones Jr., otherwise known as Little Chris, a young strapping man of his early twenties who was of course son of Big Chris, a gangster and part of Sands' intelligence network, though he knew nothing of the nature of the opposition's dealings.

Little Chris stood outside the door of an Apartment in a low rent building, smoking a cigarette and listening to the distant noises of Priest roughing up Alistair Harper, who tried to struggle to no avail, eventually giving up and telling Priest everything he knew.

There a few other noises than Priest walked out and closed the door behind him.

"Well, that's taken care of," said Priest as he straightened his coat, "Off we go then."

"Did anyone ever tell you that you have a bit of a violent streak?" asked Little Chris.

"No. And I'll kick anyone who says so in the bottle."

"I'll keep that in mind, what'd you find out?"

"The boat's coming into pier 66. There are eight men on the boat, armed."

"Are you sure you can handle it all by yourself?"

"Sonny, handling things like these is what gets me out of bed in the afternoon."

* * *

_Liverpool_

"Oy, Bill, Theo, what's on with you?" asked one smuggler in a thick Scottish brogue as he reached into his coat to pull out a gun. He walked slowly to the back of the boat where Bill was supposed to be at, he had called for him a minute ago and heard no response.

"Theo, Bill, you two better not be doing what I think you're doing."

The gun-totting smuggler made his was to Theo and Bill's post, finding absolutely nothing save for Bill's sawn-off shotgun on the floor by the railing.

"What the Hell?"

The smuggler stepped closer to the railing, peeking over the side, expecting to see something or another. The only thing he saw was someone clinging to the smooth side of the ship, dressed in a blue hooded jacket. What the smuggler saw next was that man, whoever he was reaching to his collar and pulling him down with tremendous force, slamming his face into the hard metal railing, twice, then pulling him over and letting him drop into the sea.

Priest scaled his way onboard, where he removed his hood and looked heavenward, at the murky gray sky that blocked out the sun.

"Three Down, Five to Go."

* * *

Priest walked away from the man he had just stabbed in the neck, heading to the ship's bridge. He had just dispatched of the entire crew but the Captain. The Ship was nearing the Port of Liverpool, and Pried has only the Captain to take out. Little Chris would come for him on a fishing boat of his own to extract him.

The Captain turned around just in time to be knocked out. Priest dragged him away then stepped to the control, trying to recall what it was that he saw the old Sailor months ago in Gotham do to stop the ship. He flicked on some of the controls, somewhat at random, until the ship started to decrees in speed.

"That wasn't so bad." mumbled Priest to himself, "Time to treat myself to some weed."

Priest stepped away from the helm, headed to the cargo hold, kicked it open and looked down at the narrow stairs leading down. Priest took a step forward.

Before Priest's foot touched the first wooden step, a trigger was pulled in the darkness that lay below, and a shotgun blast to Priest's chest sent him flying back, till his back slammed into the helm.

"Shit.." cursed Priest, for this blast was particularly devastating.As he staggered to his feet, he could hear steps fast approaching. As soon as he was able to look up, a sledge hammer came down on his head.

"The Focker's alive! How could the Focker be alive?!"

There were five of them, kicking and hammering at Priest as he lay at their feet on the bridge's floorboards. Mercilessly kicking him with all their might.

And then came a tall man through the door, despite being painfully punished at the moment, Priest recognized him as one of the crew he had encountered a minute ago, one that he had fatally stabbed in the neck.

"Didn't I kill you already?"

* * *

I know I may have said something about Priest meeting an old enemy, and he will, just not right away.

**Next Chapter:** Priest is saved and discovered the nature of the cargo.


	40. Outlaws

**A Brief Explanation of Cockney Rhyming Slang , **'_casue Priest will be using it frequentl_y.

What happens is the speaker chooses a phrase or word that rhymes with the word in question, and then substitute the rhyming word (or the first word of a phrase, or the entire phrase) for the word.

Examples:

Skinner is a thief. (Thief - Tea Leaf) Skinner is a tea leaf.

Barbossa and Nemo are old mates. (Mate - China Plate) Barbossa and Nemo are old Chinas.

On with the show

* * *

**Now**

_Liverpool, England_

"The Bastard won't die!" said one Scotsman as he fired his 12-gauge at Priest's heart.

"Shoot him in the head, you thick bastard."

"And what if that don't kill him? I don't want to be in the same room with someone that don't die if you shoot them in the head!"

"Gentlemen, please, we can work this put." said Priest as he was pinned under the feet of four of the men, just before he get kicked in the side of the head.

"Where's me bloody sword?" asked the sixth man, whom Priest had stabbed in the neck minutes ago.

"There's no need for swords, I assure you." said Priest.

The Scotsman finally found his sword; it was four and a half feet long claymore inside a sheath, the man unsheathed as he ordered, "Hold him down."

The four men dropped down, each holding strongly to one of Priest's limbs, restricting his movement, while the sword wielding Scotsman raised his blade high above, preparing to lop Priest's head off.

"Hhehehe! That's one big sword you got there, brother, are you overcompensating for something?"

"You don't remember me, do you, you little bastard!" said the Scotsman with the sword hatefully before swinging down.

Suddenly, the window behind the Scotsman shattered and blood shot out of his chest. The bulllet struck him down instantly, his sword accidentally slicing one of the men's arms.

"Ow! What the Hell?!"

Two small objects came flying through the broken window and rolled on the floorboard before settling by the group of men, Priest recognized them as Grenades. Before he could wonder who had temporarily saved him before hurling explosives his way, the grenades exploded, quickly filling the cabin with smoke.

The four men let go of Priest as they struggled to get away from the cabin where breathable air was quickly becoming scarce. Priest took a couple of second only before getting up to his feet and grabbing the nearest two men and hurling back into the smoke, then doing the same for the other three. He then went to work on them, in the darkness amid all the smoke, where they faced the horror of going against an inhuman juggernaut they could neither see nor hope to evade.

Two Minutes Later, Priest had mercilessly disposed of the entire crew. The smoke had mostly cleared from the Bridge, thus he could allow Little Chris on board, assuming he was there and that he was the one who hurled the smoke bombs in.

He dropped the rope ladder over the side as he saw the fishing boat approach and then retreated back inside, inspecting the bodies.

Priest kicked away the Scotsman's sword, saying, "You wanted to chop me head off, you bastard!"

He kicked the dead man's groin, yelling at the top of his voice, "THAT'S A FUCKING RUDE THING TO DO TO A COUNTRYMAN!"

Priest kicked some him some more, stopping to wonder why was it that the man looked so familiar. Loosing interest, he stepped to the Controls and knocked the Captain out as he was getting back to his feet. Then took out half of a pair of broken sunglasses out of his pocket and placed them neatly by the Helm. Then stepped out to help Little Chris in, saying, "Nice shooting, Jones."

"Wasn't me, mate. Blimey, you're all shot up!"

"I'll be alright. What do you mean it wasn't you?"

"See for yourself."

Priest extended a hand over the railing to help whoever it was that was coming after Little Chris, five strong fingers from a feminine hand clutched his own and he helped the woman up, feeling surprise

"Priest," said Mona, "Is see you're doing everything half-assed, as always. That's three times I've saved your sorry ass."

"Aye," said Priest with a satisfied smile, "But who's counting, eh?"

"You two know each other, then?" asked Little Chris.

"Indeed we did. Sax here used to be madly smitten with yours truly."

"Fuck you, Priest." said Mona, "What's with the accent?"

"Sod the accent. I want to see this gear that I almost had me crust cut off for."

"What did he say?" asked Mona as they followed Priest down to the hold.

"He said that he wanted to see the drugs he almost got decapitated for."

"How did you find me, anyway?" asked Priest.

"I went to the Winchester and hung around till Sands showed up to have a drink."

"You know Sands?"

"Yeah, I talked with him that night you got kidnapped by Maroni's Men. It took some persuading till he told me where you were, and here I am."

"Well, good having you- Bloody Hell."

The three had finally made it down and saw the massive amounts of drugs in boxes piled everywhere.

"This has to be a lot more than a Million Euros worth of Weed. Only, it doesn't smell like weed."

"I can't smell anything." said Little Chris after taking a whiff, "What's with your friend?"

"He... He smells very well." answered Mona as she watched Priest reach to one of the several brown cardboard boxes and rip it open, then reached in and pulled one of the packs inside it. It was a clear plastic pack, the size of a manila envelope, holding hundred of bills inside it.

"That doesn't look like weed to me." said Mona, "What is it, Ecstasy?"

"I don't think so. Look at the stamp." said Priest as he tossed Mona the Pack.

"It's... a bird. Oh." said Mona.

"What?" asked Little Chris, "So what if it's a bird?"

"Jones, will all of this fit on your boat?"

"Yeah, probably. We may have to chuck three or so boxes, but yeah."

"Well, then, let's start moving."

Each of the three carried a box and started walking up the stairs, Mona leading the group. But when they got to the top, she suddenly dropped her box and reached for the gun tucked in the back of her pants and fired.

"For the Love of Fuck!" cursed Priest as he saw who it was that got shot, the Scotsman with the sword, "How many times is this bastard gonna interrupt us? Let's throw him overboard, that'll do the trick."

* * *

**Later**

Mona sat next to Priest on the old, torn and long discarded couch in a vacant junkyard, and watched as the fire rose high.

Little Chris had left to London an hour ago, after Priest refused his offer to look for a buyer who would purchase the copious amounts of stolen drugs, claiming he had plans of his own.

The fire rose high, the burning beast devouring its fuel of drugs, destroying millions of euros worth of pills. Mona had asked him what was the point of such an action, and he answered it was just to make a point. Priest then kept one of the packs aside and ingested two of the pills, much to Mona's puzzlement.

"Anything yet?" asked Mona as she looked at Priest two minutes later, a time enough for the drugs to kick in.

"There used to be a designer drug called _Valkyr_, junkies called it "_V_", it first showed up ten years ago, in New York. Ever heard of it?"

"You read my file; you know that I used to work for the woman that ran the company that developed it."

"Right. Five years after Aesir Corporations; your former Employer's company went under, there arrived a New Drug called Bennu, street chemists called it "Substance B", it had similar effect to "V", probably derived from it.

"A month before Nemo and I first met, I got hold of a sample of an enhanced version of "Substance B"; this one is called "Substance C". Now I've already told you that I can't ever get drunk, I also can never get high. I've smoked weed, opium, snorted cocaine, shot heroin and none of it had an effect at me, at all. But when I tried "Substance C"..."

"What?" asked Mona as the pause grew long.

"I got a little... buzz. And Mona, I'm feeling the same Buzz right now. This IS Substance C. "

"What about the Stamp?" asked Mona, "It's a Phoenix."

"I know. This has The League written on it in big burning letters."

Priest stood up, stuffing the single Pack that he opted not to destroy into his jacket and said, "Come on, we better get to London."

* * *

'case you were wondering (Crust - crust of bread - head) 

**Next Chapter:** The King and the golden duo of Mona and Priest strike a bargain.


	41. All the King's Men

**Now**

_London_

"Hello, Sands," said Priest as he and Mona walked into the Winchester Tavern at noon, "Hello you useless, gromless get!"

"Priest, you sound... upset." said Sands calmly as he took a sip of root beer.

"Fuck yeah, I'm upset! You sent me to a ship with thirteen head-breakers and a hold full of _"Substance C"_ when there was supposed to be eight and a half half-filled with weed." said Priest as he and Mona sat down. Marmaduke who sat at his master's side got up and growled at Priest, who simply growled back, baring his fangs.

"Hey, man, shit happens. With things like these, intelligence are hardly ever reliable." said Sands.

"Shaun!" shouted Priest at the bartender, "Vodka Double! Sharpish!"

"Something smells nice. Is that you, Miss Sax, or have you started putting on something for me, Priest?"

Mona smiled and said, "Yes, its me. How are you, Mister Sands?"

"I'm fine, and call me Sheldon. That is a great scent, what is it, Viedt?"

"Nostalgia, actually."

"Hmmm."

"This is fascinating," muttered Priest, "You have no eyes, yet here you are staring at her Carpets."

"Carpets?" asked Mona, "What's he talking about?"

"Don't look at me." said Sands, "It's cockney rhyming slang. If he was a real man he'd speak in plain english."

"Cheeky Bastard." muttered Priest as Shaun arrived with his drink. Shaun looked Priest dead in the eye as he took offence, Priest quickly followed, "Not you, Shaun. You're Okay."

"Finish up quick." said Mona.

"Why are you in a hurry?"

"Her majesty doesn't like the flat I've been shacked up in. We're moving, then it's off to Nick the Greek for her hardware."

"That _'Flat'_ had Mutant roaches that spoke in Gaelic. I'm not going anywhere near it."

"Have you figured out who it was that I hit?" asked Priest after he took a sip.

"Scottish Mafia. They'll be looking for you, did you cover your tracks?"

"All of the button men are dead, I saw to it. Except for the captain, and I'm positive he didn't see me coming."

"You're wrong," said Sands, "Another one made it. Ewan MacLeod, one of Boss MacBeth's top hitmen has made it out."

"What? Impossible!" said Mona, "I was there, Priest took them all down. I took one down myself."

"I'm sure you did, honey. But my sources are to be trusted this time. What about Little Chris, did anyone see him?"

"No."

"How about Alistair Harper, did he see him when you went to tune him up?"

"No, Little Chris was invisible to all."

"What if they checked the port Authority?" asked Mona.

"Scores if not hundreds of yachts and fishing boats go through the port of Liverpool everyday, we're covered."

"You're gonna have to keep a low profile." said Sands.

"Fuck that, ain't my style. If they want me, they can come after me."

Sands sighed, "Your funeral. Now, I have some news. Big Chris called me up and told me that the King has asked to have a chat with you."

"There was something about the Drugs." said Mona.

"The ones from the ship? I thought you said you destroyed them all."

"We did, though we kept a sample. The thing is, they had a Sticker of a Phoenix on them. It might be a coincidence but-"

"Oh."

"What is it?"

"Its just that although the drugs came from Glasgow, my sources tell me the drugs originated from the states, somewhere on the East Coast. Maryland, probably."

"Maryland?" asked Mona and Priest simultaneously.

"The one with Gotham City-Maryland?" asked Priest.

"The one with the League Branch in it-Maryland?" asked Mona.

"Yep, that's the one." said Sands, "I'll have my people look into it."

* * *

"I'm afraid we'll have to search you for weapons." said Gene McGuire, one of the king's men, "Would you mind turning around?"

Priest turned around and put his hands up on the bar, allowing Mortimer to frisk him up and down, upon which he tapped him on his flanks and said he's clean. Meanwhile, Mona was being frisked by Tammy, the King's wife, much to her chagrin.

"She's packin', love." said Tammy as she took out Mona's two guns from the holster strapped to the back of her belt under her jacket.

"Jesus!" said Terry the Turk, "Where'd you people come from, a Video Game?"

"Please," said the King, "Have a seat."

The King and his men were in the office at the back of the upscale restaurant he owned and his wife ran, meeting with Mona and Priest regarding their recent run in with the Scottish Mafia.

"I once knew a man they called the Duke," said the King, "He was an old fashioned sort of man, by old fashioned I mean he was a fucking Relic, he belonged in the dark ages. No subtlety at all, he was in it for the glory and the danger of it all, and eventually it got too much and he ended up with his Body floating in the themes and his head resting on the mantle of a Serbian War Criminal. I've generally avoided working with the likes of the Duke in recent years. So, tell me, Mister Kaplan, are you in it for the Glory?"

"Glory is for wankers who don't see the convenience of living well and anonymous." said Priest.

"Good answer. Though I find myself forced to doubt that, in view of your recent run-in with the Scottish competition. On one hand, you did it professionally and I only know it was you because of half of a pair of sunglasses was found on the ship, while the other one is in my possession, on the other hand, the fact is that you did attack thirteen armed gangsters on your own. Now tell me, what's happened to the Drugs?"

"They're gone."

"What do you mean they're gone? Gone where?" asked Clarkie, the King's private chemist.

"Down the bog, I ate it all, gave it to the poor. Point is, they're gone and they're not coming back."

"Well in that case you've done me a favor." said the King with a shadow of a smile on his lips, "Truth be told, Business would be better for all parties concerned if 'Substance C' never reaches our shores."

"How come?" asked Mona.

"'Substance C' is highly addictive, hazardous and rather cheap. The minute our customers start digging into it, our old merchandise will be cease to hit the spot, that is if they don't overdose within days. The police won't look away as we normally pay them to do. With City elections around the corner, a new monstrous drug like "C" might galvanize candidates into playing the crack-down-on-the-drug-trade card."

"So, are you grateful enough to help us with our problem?" asked Priest.

The King chuckled, "Not quite, you've simply delayed Substance C's arrival, there is bound to be more on the way."

"We can dig up what you want about Eddie Temple," said McGuire, "It'll take some time, during which you'll help us prevent this drug from ever reaching London. That's our only offer."

"Take it," said Terry, "or fuck off."

"We won't fuck off," said Priest, "If that's your price, then so be it."

"Excellent," said the King, "We'll stay in touch through Big Chris."

* * *

"You sure got on board pretty quick." said Mona as Priest tried to hail a taxi after they had both exited the restaurant.

"What else could I've done?"

"I don't know; maybe negotiate something that you can actually pull off."

"What, are you saying we can't do it?"

"No, It's just we don't have the guns or the numbers for it, and I'd like us to do something in a clever way that didn't include you growling before diving head first into trouble, just for once."

"We don't need guns, we don't need numbers. We're going to even veg for the next few days, just relaxing, till the King tells us its time to work. Ask me 'Why, Priest?'"

"Why, you little monkey?"

"Because we have something that most gangsters don't. You're a smart little girlie, so I'll let you sort it out on your own. I'll buy you a stake if you do it before we get into a cab."

A taxi appeared from up the street, Priest hailed it and the driver responded, all while Mona contemplated what Priest meant.

"Too late." said Priest as he opened the door, "No stake for you."

Mona raised her eyes towards Priest as realization dawned on her, and she said, "We have a boss with an armed Submarine."

"Attagirl, lets get you fed, shall we?"

* * *

**Next Chapter**: Q is finally finished with building Nemo's invention, Nemo recruits a certain vigilante to his cause, while a certain Highlander speaks of Priest's gruesome past, informing us of things that may change the way we view him. A milestone chapter! You don't want to miss it!!

Cockney Rhyming Slang Tid-Bit: Carpets – Carpets and Rugs – Jugs – Breasts.


	42. Infamous

_This Chapter is the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything, it is in Loving Memory of Douglas Adams (11 March 1952 - 11 May 2001), who taught us the humor that lay in the end of the world._

* * *

**Now**

_East London Docks_

"I must admit," said Nemo as he oversaw his crew installing a massive spherical contraption with grids running through its surface in one of the central rooms of the Yellow Submarine, in the company of Priest and Mona, "When I authorized you to do as you saw fit, I did not expect to be pressgang into doing drug lords' dirty work."

"Omelets equal broken eggs, Captain." said Priest, "In the big picture; we maintain the status-quo and get what we want."

"I suppose. Now, what is this drug I keep hearing about?"

Mona handed Nemo the last remaining bag of Substance C in all of London.

"You two wouldn't be at all familiar with Egyptology, would you?"

"Nope."

"You say this is called Substance B, right? Derived from the name Bennu?"

"No. This is Substance C, Substance B is it's predecessor."

"Right. Well, as you have noted, this drug has originated from Gotham and has a Phoenix symbol on it. Bennu is the Egyptian equivalent to the Phoenix. It's good luck that you two've stumbled upon it."

"So, are we going to look into it?"

"I'll task that to someone else, your only mission is MacGuffin. Tell me, what's next?"

"Nothing." said Priest, "We sit on our hands waiting for the King to tell us when to move, you'll do your magic, he'll tell us what went down between MacGuffin and Temple. We'll be out of London within a week, ten days tops. Will you be sticking around for that long?"

"I have serious business to conduct overseas, the submarine will remain here, first mate Pepper will do as you or the King wish."

Boothroyd emerged from behind the great iron sphere, rolling down his sleeves, having finished connecting the device commissioned by Nemo months ago to the submarine's power generators.

"All well, Jeffrey?" asked Nemo.

"All is well, Captain. All that is left is for you to order a trial run."

"I'm taking my time with that matter, actually."

"Well, do tell me how it goes. Goodbye, Captain."

"Goodbye."

Boothroyd was accompanied out by second mate Billy Shears, who would drive him away to his residence in Crawley.

"What the hell is that thing?"

"The Future, Miss Sax."

"Looks like a big marble to me."

"It does, doesn't it?"

* * *

**One Day Later**

_Gotham City, Maryland_

"Bruce. I apologize for not announcing myself prior to my arrival, Bruce." said Nemo as the butler left.

"No need, Nemo." said Bruce Wayne with a warm and sincere smile, "I realize that last time we talked, we were not on the best of terms, but you're always welcomed here. Care for a drink?"

Thunder split the night in half and a lightening bolt filled the room briefly with light as the two friends stood in the study of Wayne Manor, home to Multi-billionaire Bruce Wayne, Gotham City's Golden Boy, and its Dark protector.

"Yes. A Whisky, please."

"You're a persistent man, Nemo." said Bruce as he went to the mini-bar wedged between the bookshelves to pour the drinks, "I've never seen you drink anything but whisky."

"An English thief taught me to love it, many decades ago. How goes the business of defending Gotham?"

"Well, the mayor is the crime families' goddamn running dog, half the police force is on the take, things are as worse as ever with this new breed of criminals I appear to have inspired; the likes of the Joker, the Cat-Woman, less no we forget Two-Face, a man who a few years ago I thought was the man to clean up the city, only now he's part of the problem."

"So you're giving up?"

"Hell no." said Wayne as he handed Nemo his whisky and stood by the window, starring out at the raining sky of Gotham, "It'll take years, maybe more, it won't be easy and it won't happen without loss. But I'm gonna do it, Nemo, I'm gonna rid this city of the evil that took my parents life... Do I sound obsessed? Alfred keeps telling me so."

"One could make such a supposition." said Nemo as he took a sip of the finely aged whiskey.

"One could say we were alike in that regard."

"One could say."

"Are you still working with Judas Priest?"

"Yes I am, out of the country."

A long pause followed, till Nemo said, "I know all about your opinion of criminals, but Priest is different. He seems to have reformed as well, why, just two days ago he stopped a dangerous drug from reaching British shores. There's a strange thing about this drug, it was manufactured in your City."

Wayne kept silent for the better part of a minute, simply looking out at the rain as it washed against the window. Eventually breaking his silence, he said,

"What do you want from me, Nemo?"

"I want the aid of Gotham City's protector, America and perhaps the world's greatest detective."

"I'm not the world's greatest detective, Nemo. It's just my overzealous supporters with the press. What do you need my help with, anyway?"

"To by my Agent in Gotham." said Nemo, who had spent the last few hours thinking how he could make such a request.

"Out of the question, Nemo. My concern is the safety of the people of Gotham, I've got nothing to do with your war on the League."

"Yes you do. This drug was manufactured here, by all accounts its the most terrible drug there's been in recent years. It has not yet been unleashed on, but f you're true in your war on crime, geography wouldn't matter. Crime is crime."

"Nemo-"

"It doesn't matter if it is someone selling drugs to children, or misguided zealots killing themselves and others. Injustice, terrorism, crime... If these things are committed against one, then they have been committed against us all. The League's atrocities have certainly made victims of us all."

"Nemo..." said Wayne as he turned around and set his glass on a table, "You're an amazing man. You're one of the few I trust. And if you believe in it this bad, then you must be true at heart."

"You're with us, then?" asked Nemo, hope growing inside him.

"I'll investigate the drug, I might not join your army's ranks, but you have my support to a certain degree. I assume you have a sample of this drug?"

Nemo grinned and picked up his briefcase and laid it on a table, he opened it, taking out the bag of Substance D that Priest had saved. Nemo also took out a lap-top computer.

"This is for you."

"No thanks, I have several."

"Not like this, this will serve as our connection. You must keep it from falling into the wrong hands."

"Nemo, who do you think you're talking to?"

"Ha! You are right. Welcome to the good fight, Bruce."

Wayne picked up the glass from the table and raised it, as did Nemo.

"Here's to you, Prince Dakkar."

"Here's to you, Batman."

The two glasses clinked together, and so a new day in the ongoing secret war began.

* * *

**Days Ago**

_London_

Ewan MacLeod cautiously pushed the door open, stepping into the back room of MacHeath's Bar, to where the boss was waiting. Fat Bastard was the name he went by, though no one ever dared to refer to him as such by that name. He was as his name suggested morbidly obese, though he was also of powerful physique, sandy brown haired with thick sideburns and icy cold eyes. He saw in an arm chair with a tray filled with roasted chickens on it, digging in with both hands.

"Boss," said MacLeod, "You've asked to see me."

"Have a seat, Ewan." said the Fat Bastard in a thick Scottish brogue, before taking a massive bite out of a drumstick.

MacLeod sat down across the table from Bastard while the Boss' other men looked on sharply.

"We've lost a great deal the other day, both fine men and grade-A gear, valuable merchandise and reliable men are something of a rarity, Ewan. You're the only one to walk away from all of it, What do you plan on doing?"

"I'm going to find the man who did this." said MacLeod without a moment's hesitation.

"Yes, this man that didn't die even when Georgie shot him in the chest with a 12-gauge. Tell me, is he anything like you?"

"He's nothing like me," said MacLeod hatefully, "He's a monster, the bastard son of a whore and a demon. He's not an Immortal, not like me, anyway. He's a vampire, a LaMagran to be precise."

"Of your tone is suspect that you have crossed paths in the past." said Fat Bastard and took a swig of lager.

"I have had the misfortune of meeting Judas Priest, many years ago."

"I see. And what does your history entail, exactly?"

"It was all back in 1735, in Glenfinnian. That's when the so called Clan Priest first appeared." started MacLeod, "At first, we thought they were simply a filthy horde of savages that stayed in their camp all day and only went out at night. There less than twenty of them, so we didn't give them a second thought. But we were wrong, they were a monstrous cut-throats and ambitious mercenaries, they started gathering turf and power very quickly, raiding passing caravans, doing wealthy landlords' dirty work, never leaving any survivors. Those they didn't devour were made into their image and joined them.

"They were led by Abraxas Priest, a man so evil that some say the Devil made a point to never be in the same town. To this day, no one knows where they came from or if their name really Priest, some say that Abraxas had drank the blood of monks so much that he saw himself as being made of the blood of men of god, and as thus was one himself.

"His two bastard whelps, Judas and Grigori; they were his top soldiers. When we first caught a glimpse of them, we split our sides laughing. Back then they still appeared to be under twenty, though in reality well into their fifties, a pair of skinny whelps with not a hair on their chain, Judas was a Jack Sprat to boot. But what the brothers lacked in size they made for in bloodthirsty ruthlessness. Grigori Priest was a rabid animal, a murderous swine, He was a demon, but predictable. Judas Priest however, was a different kind of animal... He did as much murdering and plundering as his brother did, but did it in ways that led to a great deal of anguish and pain. One time, Abraxas dispatched the two to murder two families that had successfully slain a number of his men, Grigori simply attacked the lot of them, drank from all then raped the daughter, perhaps in that order. In the meantime, in the neighboring house, Judas bound the whole family, save for the mother, whom he told that he'd painfully kill them all, unless she did it first. The following morning saw the mother wandering the village, mad as mad could get, having killed her husband, her four son and two daughters. After that, the whole village fell into submission to the Priests.

"We, the clan MacLeod, rose against them many times, sometimes victorious, sometimes not. The bottom line is that we never did drove them away completely."

"I'm enjoying the history lesson, Ewan," said the Fat Bastard, "I really am. Would you mind just telling me about Priest?"

"As I was saying, on one of the times we rose against them, I had come as close to Judas Priest as I ever did, it was in the early hours of the morning, when they would be naturally weakest, we advanced across their hills to their castle. Someone must have betrayed us, because Judas Priest lead a brigade of his mercenaries, fully clocked, in a charge against us, destroyed our entire ranks in under an hour, I saw as my brothers and uncles were mercilessly killed, and met my first death with open arms as Priest's horse's hooves trampled me.

"I rose hours later, there were a handful of other survivors who could not fathom how was it that I was alive. They then told me the story of two of our clansmen from days past, of Connor and Duncan MacLeod, who had risen from the dead after falling in battle, through sorcery as my clansmen claimed. They left to our village, licking their wounds, refusing to take me with them and promising me death if I followed. I spent days wailing among the battered dead bodies, the reality of my destiny dawning on me. Judas Priest had robbed me of my life, I could never go home.

"And so I left and never came back. As I understand, Judas Priest was never to be seen in Glenfinnian after that as well, he simply disappeared. Some say that he traveled the world, eventually settling down in America. Abraxas Priest died ten years later, at the hand of the Slayer. Grigori Priest gathered what remained of the family wealth and departed to Eastern Europe."

"That really is a sad story." said Fat Bastard wryly, "I sympathies. I can see that you're willing, eager and deserving to exact righteous vengeance on Judas Priest. The word has gotten in from Glasgow; Mister MacBeth wants what is remained of his drugs back and the money that may have resulted from selling it. Mister MacBeth also wants the fuckers behind this to be made an example of. I'll say it as clear as I can, I want Priest out of the picture before he has the chance to loot the next Shipment of Substance C. And needless to say, If we won't have Priest's head by then, we'll have yours."

* * *

_So... What does these revelations make you think of Priest? Is he a wolf in sheep's clothes? Is he a monster trying to turn a new page? Also, Batman has joined the fight on a part-time basis, how much should the League fret?_


	43. Highlander

**Now**

_London_

"Oh, my fucking head!" groaned Mona as she staggered out of the bathroom of the apartment she and Priest moved to a few days ago.

"You alright, Pet?" asked Priest as he walked to the door having heard the doorbell ring. Mona struggled to the kitchen island and sat down, lowered her head and started lightly banging it against the table to dull her migraine.

Priest returned holding a plastic bag that he placed on the table and turned to the coffee maker, saying, "When you said your mum was half-Irish, you were laying. No Irishwoman would ever spawn such lightweights."

"It's your entire fault!"

"I know." said Priest as he poured a warm cup of blood.

"You took me to that bar; you bought me all those drinks. Why'd you do that?"

"This is England, love. A visit to London without getting hungover is like a visit to Vegas without gamboling you shirt away, or a visit to New York without getting mugged. I got the doorman to get us a spot of the greasiest breakfast he could find, eat till you're bloated, you'll be fine then."

"How do you know that, you've never been drunk in your whole life."

"Well, I once spent a weekend with Bob Dylan, I saw him use the trick after the mother of all benders."

"You met Bob Dylan?!"

"Aye, in sixty-six. Now eat."

**

* * *

**_Liverpool_

Alistair Harper limped to the door with soar feet as he heard a banging on his door, he cracked open it just a bit and his eyes widened.

"Oh, No!"

Ewan MacLeod forced his way in and said, "Oh, yes."

"Listen..." said Harper as he fumbled back, tripping and falling on an armchair, "I tried to hold out on that bastard that came asking for the Shipment, but he was too big and strong!"

"Liar, that man was smaller than you!"

"Please! You have to believe me; I think he was going to torture me!"

"You better believe it, he WAS going to torture you, and your throat would have dried up begging him to kill you. That is the only reason why I haven't killed you."

"Oh, thank you! I always knew you were a Prince among men, Ewan!"

"Don't get ahead of yourself, you running your mouth cost us a lot of money and a lot of lives, and if you want to live till next Sunday, you're going to have to do as I say."

"Whatever you say, Ewan, I'll do it."

"You're going to help me find Judas Priest."

"You got it, Ewan! We'll fix the bastard! Heheh. Wait... who's Judas Priest?"

* * *

_London_

"Big Chris called on behalf of the King," said Mona, "He said to be on alert for the next few days. The next shipment is coming in soon."

"I love it when a plan comes together. How's your Crust?"

"If you're talking about my noggin, then it's better."

"I reckon it'll be goodbye London soon, no more warm pints of lager at the Winchester, no more flirting with Sands..."

"I do NOT flirt with Sands."

"...No more fish and chips, I'll admit, being back here's stirring old feelings in me; feelings I've missed having. Once this is all over, I might just move here."

"Are you sure that'd be smart? I don't think the Scottish mob is going to forget about you soon."

"I'll worry about it then. We should soak in as much of London as we can while we're here, It's sunny outside, but can go as soon as the sun goes down. We don't have to go drinking if you're worried about that, we can go to an art gallery, or a concert, or a West End Play, have you ever seen 'Springtime for Hitler'? It's Hilllllllarious! Though of what I hear, that was not the intent. Oh! Chelsea is playing Milwall! We could go see that!"

"Priest, are you Okay? You're acting weird."

"I'm f... um, that is I feel fiiii... ugh..."

"Priest?" asked Mona with concern as Priest sat down on the couch and held his head in his hands.

"Better forget about going out, pet. I think I better cool it for tonight, I've been up for days."

_

* * *

_

_Liverpool_

MacLeod sat with Harper and the hotel's head of security as they looked through hours and hours of CCTV footage. The hotel in question was Harper's.

"This would be easier if you could give something like... an hour." said the security man.

"Man, look at me!" said Harper as he gestured at his bruised and cut face, "While that cunt-bastard was beating the shite outta me, It never crossed my mind to look at me grandfather-clock!"

"Alright, don't get your nickers in a twist."

"I thought you knew who it was, there's no point in watching the tapes; is there?"

"Priest wasn't probably working alone, he had some help. Once we know who it that helped him was, we'll find them and get them to lead us to Priest." explained MacLeod.

"Why not cut out the middle man and go straight to Priest?"

"Because if Priest doesn't want to be found, he's not going to be found."

"Alright, alright... Wait, that's them there!"

All three looked closer at the screen that displayed Priest and Little Chris pulling into the hotel's parking lot and getting out, heading up the stairs to Harper's Residence.

"That's him! The wee fella, that's him!"

"We can't see the other one's face. Do you have another camera?" asked MacLeod.

The security man moved to another screen and banged on his keyboard, conjuring the footage from the same time through a camera a few doors away from Harper's apartment. The image displayed was of Priest kicking down Harper's door, then Little Chris leaning against the wall next to it, smiling contently and having a cigarette.

"How's that bastard?" asked Harper a she leaned forward, squinting to see the man more clearly.

Without a single warning, MacLeod grabbed Harper by the head and twisted his neck, snapping it in an instant.

"Christ!" said the Security man as he looked at the newly created corpse on the floor, "Couldn't you have taken him to his room and done him in there?"

"Probably." said MacLeod as he stood up and put on his trench coat, slipping his katana inside and strapping it to his waist, "Need any help with the body or can you take care of it on your own?"

"Nah. Just drag it into the corner and cover it with a blanket or something, I'll see to it before my shift is over."

* * *

_London_

"Did you have a good night sleep?" asked Mona as she stepped out of the bathroom, wrapped in a robe.

"Nien." said Priest as he lay slumped on the floor, starring at the TV with glassy eyes.

"I thought you said you were too tired."

"Yeah, life's a bitch."

**

* * *

**Little Chris' grocery bag dropped to the floor as he stood by the open door, having came in mere seconds ago. The apartment's occupant, his girlfriend, was sitting on a wooden chair, her hands clutching the seat from below, nervous as hell, as she had her neck at sword-point. 

"Hello, my son." said MacLeod calmly, toying with the woman's neck.

"You... You let her go, right now!" said Little Chris with a voice he meant to be commanding, but came out trembling.

"Try it again, Wee Chris, only try sounding like you have an ounce of bollocks this time."

"Whoever you are, you have no idea what you just started..."

"You don't remember me, do you?" asked MacLeod as he brought the edge of the sword closer to the young whimpering woman's ivory white neck, "Let me refresh your memory. You, along with Judas Priest and some tart, had me shot at then dumped into the waters, before legging it with my drugs."

"Judas Who?" asked Little Chris, genuinely confused for hearing the strange name, as well as shocked the see the man alive once more.

"Don't be smart with me, mate. I know you work with Judas Priest, you know him; five-eight, black haired..."

"His name is... his name is Kaplan, George Kaplan."

"Whatever, he's a son of a slag. Here's what's going to happen, you're going to tell me all about Mister Kaplan, and maybe I'll let the little woman go."

The young woman yelped in pain as the sword slashed lightly at her flesh, cutting lightly into her, though not at all life threatening, it certainly made the point.

"You bastard! If you hurt her I'll-"

"What? Shoot me? You think that'll do any good?" barked MacLeod.

"Fine, fine." said Little Chris, "You're the boss of me, just let her go."

MacLeod let go of her, and she broke down in tears.


	44. Boiling Down

**Now**

_London_

"Priest, are you there?" asked Sands through the lap top.

"It's only me, Sands." said Mona as she put her legs up on the counter with a glass of gin in her hand, "Priest is out."

"Doing what?"

"God only knows, he's been weird these past couple of days. A couple of hours ago he said he was going out to do something, then start jabbering in cockney and I just pushed him out the door to get rod of him. What's up?"

"Big Chris called; he said the King told him the next shipment was incoming two days from now, this one is three times as big and four times more protected. But I don't think the Yellow Submarine will find that worth much."

* * *

"You...You're a bastard." said Little Chris as a string of blood poured down from his lips and along his bare chest.

MacLeod simply glanced at him as he polished his sword, then inserted into his sheath.

"I could have cut parts of you, valuable part." said MacLeod, "I was merciful, is what I was."

"You're not going to let me go, are you?" asked Little Chris as he tried to look around the dark and empty basement he was in, wincing in pain as his battered flesh ached from the movement.

"Probably not, but maybe, depending how good a mood I'm in when I kill you friend Priest, sorry, Kaplan."

"He's not my friend." said Little Chris, "Christ, what'd he do you, shag your mum?"

"Priest has destroyed everything I hoped to be," said MacLeod as he headed for the stairs, "Everything I was, everything I had and everything I wanted. He's stolen my life, and for that he must pay. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and use you as a bargaining chip with your father."

* * *

"What the hell was that?" asked the chambermaid as the loud screaming from the room down the hall quitted down.

"It's Priest, the lodger in room five." said the old woman at the reception desk as she looked through her purse for a packet of cheroot.

"What's with 'em?"

"I dunno. He's a dodgy sort of fella. Checked in two weeks ago, brought a woman home one night then got out. He's paid up till tomorrow, he got back this morning and he's been screaming last every twenty minutes. If you ask me, it must be them drugs you kids are always on."

"Give it a rest, Doris."

"Pack of useless gets, the lot of you."

* * *

Mona felt her flank, reassured at the solid touch of gun metal through the fabric of her hooded jacket. She let her hand drop and she looked at a mirror mounted on one of the walls of the tube station's walls, seeing that her pursuer was still on her trail.

Priest had been missing all day, having taken the day to tend to personal affairs. At lunchtime, Sands had contacted her, telling her that the King had requested her to perform a special errand, so special that if performed, it would be accepted in lieu of them stopping the next shipment of Substance C from reaching England.

Failing to locate Priest, she set out to perform the errand herself. The nature of this errand has become inconsequential at this point, for seeing as how she had was being tailed for the past few minutes, she had been led into a trap.

Mona wondered who could it have been as she turned a corner, stepped into a nook and whipped out her suppressed gun and cocked it.

Who was it that set her up? Was the King not to be trusted after all? Was Sands the turncoat? Or was it Big Chris, their liaison with the King?

Mona could hear the man's footsteps approaching. There was someone else that might have been behind it; Priest. He had mysteriously disappeared all day, and though there seemed there was no way he could have manipulated any of them into doing it, she knew he was a cunning and resourceful bastard. She pushed all four men out of her mind as she prepared to make her move.

Her pursuer turned the corner after her, coming in quicker than he should have, giving her the opportunity to step out of her hiding place, kick him right in the knee cap, forcing him to loose his balance before she pistol whipped him in the face, knocking him to the ground.

"You Bitch!" cursed the man as he lay on the floor with a gun point at his head. Mona kicked him hard in the crotch.

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch that, what did you say?"

The man looked hatefully at Mona and said nothing.

"I'm serious, what did you say?"

"I said..." said the man, his voice gone a little high pitched, "You Bitch."

"Well well, Scottish Mafia, aren't you?" said Mona with a smirk, "Your gun, two fingers, nothing funny."

The man reached into his pocket and pulled out his gun by the barrel slowly.

"Chuck it over there at the tracks."

The man did as Mona told him.

"How many more are there? You'll either tell me or you'll loose a testicle."

"One."

"Where?"

A man suddenly emerged from behind the corner, seeing his partner at gun point, he reached into his jacket to reach his own. Mona was quick to shoot him in the elbow before his hand could come out. As the man screamed, Mona shot him in the shin, sending him crumbling down.

"Never mind." said Mona as she stepped to the other man and took his gun as he writhed in pain.

"Who sent you two clowns?"

"Ewan...Ewan MacLeod."

"Leftie, you bastard!" shouted the second gunman.

"Fuck you, Pat!" shouted Leftie.

"Pat, shut up." said Mona, "Leftie, why did MacLeod send you after me?"

Leftie was silent for too long, so Mona shot him in the knee.

"Leftie, why?"

"He didn't say, alright?! He just told us to get you, and get you alive. I swear to Christ!"

Mona stepped back though her gun was still aimed at the two, then turned around and started walking quickly away to the nearest exit.

* * *

"What's the score?" asked Priest as he wandered into Big Chris' office, where Sands was standing at one end, nervous as hell, holding onto Marmaduke's leash, the hound was barking loudly while Mona and Big Chris were having a shouting match. Everybody continued, not noticing Priest's arrival.

"Marmaduke!" yelled Priest, "Sit! Mona, Big Chris, pipe down and tell me what in fuck's name is going on?"

"Priest?" asked Sands, "Where the hell have you been?"

"Out, tending to my own affairs. I got back to the flat and Mona's not there, I popped down to the Winchester and Shaun told me to come here. Now someone please tell me what's going on."

"This limey bastard sold me out, Priest." said Mona.

"Like hell I did!" yelled Big Chris.

"I... I don't understand."

"This evening while you were off where doing god knows what, Sands tells me that Big Chris told him the King said that instead of destroying the next shipment of drugs, I was supposed to take out a couple of guys for him. Only on my way, I get ambushed by a couple of Scottish gangsters working for someone called Ewan MacLeod."

"Ewan MacLeod; the bloke from the ship you shot twice and lived to tell about it?"

"Yeah."

"You three, get out!" shouted Big Chris, "Get out before I chuck you all out, and take your mutt with you! I've done nothing, NOTHING!"

"You're lying, Chris." said Priest, "I know you are, don't deny it."

"Bugger you, Kaplan! The hell I am!"

"Oh, trust me, Jones." said Priest with a growl as he bared his fangs, "I know you're lying."

"Jesus Christ!" said Big Chris as he stumbled back.

"Why'd you do it?"

"I...I..."

"Why?" demanded Sands.

"It's Little Chris, alright?" yelled Big Chris then sat down on his chair.

"What happened to Little Chris?"

"He's been gone since yesterday," said Big Chris with an uncharacteristically trembling voice, "His girlfriend told me some big Scot broke into their flat, threatened to kill her and forced Chris to come with him. This morning I get a call from him, and he said that he's got him and that he'll kill him unless I deliver her to him."

"He wants to get at Mona for almost killing him." said Sands with realization.

"No, it's me he's after." said Priest.

"What do you mean?"

"You should have come to us, Chris." said Sands angrily.

"And you'd do what? I don't know what the game with the three of you is; I'm not about to risk... Look, it's my son! What could have I done? Yes, I sold you out and I'd sell the rest of you if it meant my son's safety. And if you can't handle that, if you can't understand it, then to hell with the lot of you!"

"Believe me when I say that I understand Chris." said Priest calmly, somewhat coldly, "I understand."

"You don't."

"I do. Any other reason and I would have slit your throat for putting this woman in harm's way, but it is because I understand that I'm going to let you live. And not only am I going to let you live, I'm going to get your son back."

"You are?" asked Sands, "How do you plan on doing that?"

"Easy, I'll give him what he wants." said Priest, "Can you contact him?"

"Yes." said Big Chris with renewed hope.

"Get in touch with him, tell him Judas Priest knows who he is and will meet him on his terms. Sands, when will the Substance C be coming in?"

"Two days from now, noon."

"That's when I'll meet him; I think he'll be very happy with that time as well."

"What's the deal?"

"If I'm meeting with MacLeod, then they'll feel safe enough to get the shipment into Liverpool. He'll have fulfilled his obligation to the Mob, all will be left is his unfinished business with me, at which point, he'll have no problem letting Little Chris go."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because there is something for everyman that he'll pay whatever the cost to get. For you, it's Little Chris' welfare. For MacLeod, it's the chance to kill me."

"And why is it that MacLeod wants to kill you?" asked Mona.

Priest looked Mona in the eye and walked away, saying, "You better make that call quick, Chris."

* * *

**Next Chapter:** The London operation comes to its end; Priest and MacLeod face each other and Mona has to save Litle Chris' little neck, Nemo has to stop the shipment of drugs from reaching Liverpool.


	45. The Cold Dish

**Now**

_Hyde Park, London, England_

"Judas Priest."

Priest looked from where he was sitting on the park bench, a hundred feet from where Edward Hyde's statue stood; to see Ewan MacLeod standing tall with a satisfied smirk, his long black trench coat flapping in the wind, giving occasional glimpses of the broadsword hanging by his side.

"You took you bloody time getting here," said Priest, "I've heard that Revenge is a dish best served cold, but you were pushing it. One of us was supposed to be dead by now."

"Oh, be sure we'll be getting to that."

"I know we will, but I thought we could have a little chat and a little drop first." said Priest as he reached into his jacket and pulled out a bottle and asked, "Scotch?"

* * *

_"Scotch?"_

"Priest, stopped fucking around." said Mona as she pressed the earphone into her ear as it was coming loose.

She was on the rooftop of one of the building overlooking Hyde Park with MacLeod in her crosshairs and ear phones in her ear feeding her the voices of MacLeod and Priest via Priest's cell phone.

_"You slipped a mikey, didn't you?"_

_"You really think I'm that dodgy? Come on, when you've got the grandkids on your knees, would you want to tell them you didn't have the brass ones to have a drink with your nemesis?"_

Mona saw MacLeod shrug through her telescope and sat down on the bench.

_"What the hell."_

_"There's a good man."_

* * *

A school of fish dispersed as the man in the diving suit came straight in their direction at tremendous speed. The mysterious continued his advance, propelled by a pair of jets on the back of his bulky blue diving suit, heading upwards towards a ship a few hundred meters away.

"Pepper, can you hear me?" asked Nemo as he turned a knob on the wrist of his suit that slowed down his velocity.

_"Loud and clear, Captain."_

"I'm two-hundred meters away from the target, be on standby."

_"Aye, Captain."_

A minute later, Nemo had come to complete stop and had attached himself to the ship's hull through the use of electrical magnets on his suit. He reached into his pouch and took out a circular device the size of a plate and attached it to the iron surface and pressed a button on its surface, he then moved ten feet to the side and attaching another similar device, then placing a third below so that the three formed an even sided triangle.

"Sergeant Pepper, commence the ultrasonic scanning."

Nemo waited for a minute before his first mate's voice came to him, saying, "Captain, your device worked. We can see ten crewmen in the hold and massive quantities of cargo."

"Are the guards armed?"

"Unless those are prop gun, I'd assume so, Sir."

"Excellent, we have the right ship. I'll be returning shortly."

Nemo planted a final device, this one shaped like a cone, and then removed the other three and turned the knob on his suit, activating the jets and sending him away from the ship.

* * *

"Good stuff, isn't it?" asked Priest as he and MacLeod finished their glasses of Scotch.

"It is indeed. Now, to the death?"

"Why are you in such a hurry, son? Neither of us is getting any older."

"Alright, what do you want to talk about?"

"Little Chris, you know him, right? Six-One, Blonde, Blue Eyes, You kidnapped him a few days ago. Where is he?"

"What difference does it make to you?"

"Long story. We had an accord, a conference with me in exchange with the boy's life. Now, back when I still waged terrible war against your clan, I kept hearing that the MacLeods were men of their word. You ARE a MacLeod, are you not?"

"That'll be the last time you utter that name you son of whore."

"Right. Where is he?"

MacLeod chuckled as he looked all around himself, "I'm in the cross hairs, aren't I?"

* * *

_"Hehehh. I'm in the cross hairs, aren't I?"_

"Crap." muttered Mona as she looked through the crosshairs at the back of MacLeod's head a she talked to Priest.

_"Probably the same woman who shot me twice, who skillfully evaded my men. Can she hear me? If she can, I'd like to say hooray for you, Georgie and Leftie are not easy men to overcome."_

Mona breathed heavily as she trained her finger on the trigger and fire at Priest's command.

_"You are a cheating cunt, Priest. What were you planning on doing? Getting me to spill the beans, then have that Bitch shoot me in the head so you can cut my head off before I quicken?"_

_"That was the plan, aye."_

_"Dumb plan, not to mention lazy. You were a diabolical warlord in your auld days, Priest, you were the stuff of nightmares, what the hell happened to you?"_

_"Long story. So I guess you're not going to tell me where Little Chris is, right? So I have no reason why I shouldn't have you shot. So you're probably better off telling me. Hmmmm, It is a __**pickle**__, is what it is."_

_"God's truth. You're in luck though, I've worked it out."_

_"Oh?"_

_"Yeah. It so happens that Wee Little Chris is sitting on a timed bomb, and right about now he has nigh on fifty minutes left before his colon is blown to the moon."_

_"You horrible bastard! Where is he?"_

_"Very much away from here. In fact, with the traffic at this time, your friend would need to get her arse moving right now if she hopes to have a chance to deactivate it."_

_"You wont tell where is he until she's on her way to a place we know where is?!"_

_"Tell her to get on the tube in Knightsbridge Station and get off in Putney, I'll tell you the specific location by the time she gets there."_

Mona was at a loss to what should she be doing, to follow MacLeod instructions or shoot him in the head.

_"Mona, I'd do as he says if I were you."_ came Priest's grimly.

Mona stepped away from the ledge and started disassembling her sniper rifle and placing it into its case before running to the staircase.

* * *

Nemo had gotten out of his diving suit and had made his way to the bridge where Shears and Pepper were waiting.

"Fire the torpedo."

"Aye, Captain."

Shears hit a button on the consol and out of the side of the submarine a torpedo was released, it coursed its way through the waters, guided by modern technology to the cone-shaped device attached to the drug runner's ships' hull.

"We have impact, Sir." said Shears, "The ship's going down."

* * *

"So, you turned out to be one of them, eh?" asked Priest as he got up and started pacing, "The Immortals, that is."

"Evidently." said MacLeod.

"Tell me something. Did you ever go looking for me?"

"Once I got out of Scotland, once I found somene who explained what I had become. I spent twenty years on the hunt for you, never managing to find you. I heard of you being in America a couple of time in the seventies, went looking for you then but didn't find you on either occasion."

"Well, now you've found me."

"Indeed I have. So were have you been all those years?"

"Here and there."

"So, _were_ you in America?"

"Aye. Arrived with the survivors of the Titanic. Been mostly living there ever since. You?"

"Been in England mostly, spent time in Africa with the Army, fought the Bores."

"You were a soldier, then?"

"At times, I fought in the great wars as well."

"Small world."

"What do you mean?"

"So tell me, when are you going to tell me where is that you have Little Chris?"

"I'll tell you in a minute or two, what did you mean by _'Small World'_?"

"I meant that I fought in the War myself, the second one. I was shagging my way through the women of Boston during the first one, though. Hehe!"

"You're lying! You didn't fight in World War Two!"

"Oh, I did. Did my share of field combat, though I mostly worked with intelligence, Black Ops sort of thing."

"Do you expect me to believe that you fought for anything other than yourself and the likes of you?"

"I don't expect it, no. Err... Look, truth is, I don't remember who you were."

"You wouldn't, I was just another kill, wasn't I?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake..."

"You trampled me with you horse."

"I never did such a thing... Oh, wait. That was the day I left, that was during your sneak attack at dawn, wasn't it?"

"It was. I heard you were never seen in Glenfinnan after that.

"That's right, I wasn't."

"Well, if your little friend can hear us, you better tell her that Chris is at room four, at the Black Adam Inn on Ganns Street."

Priest took his cell phone out of his pocket and put it to the side of his head.

"Mona... Did you hear that? Good. I'll see you soon. Be careful... Don't worry, I'll be fine."

"Very optimistic of you." said MacLeod as Priest hung up, "Now, your associate is on her way to rescue young Chris, you and I have no reason to procrastinate any more. To the death?"

Priest didn't respond, and moments later he started chuckling.

"What's so fucking funny?"

"Heheh Heheh! It's just something you said; 'I was the one you trampled with a horse'! It's just a funny thing to say. **HAHAHA!**"

"You think it's funny? You think what you did to me was fuckin' funny?!"

"Oh, here we go!" muttered Priest, rolling his eyes.

"You've RUINED MY LIFE! I can't age! I can't stay in one place for more than ten years! I can never have children of my own!"

"Oh, for fuck's sake, PUT A SOCK IN IT!" shouted Priest as he furiously stood up. The sound of thunder could be heard distantly, and the weather that was merely cloudy for the day was quickly turning grim, bearing promises of hard rain.

"You're such a little wanker, Ewan! I've known my share of MacLeod over the years, and none came to be such a self-pitying little shit like YOU did!"

"You dare?" asked MacLeod as he stood up.

"I fuckin' well do dare! I didn't ruin your life, I did you a favor!"

MacLeod's eyes glimmered with pure rage as he asked, "Did you, now?"

"Yeah, I did. If I didn't top you, you'd have grown into another old fart married to a fat cow of a wife and died without your Immortality ever activated. And look at the mess you've made of it!"

"I will not be judged by you!" said MacLeod as all six and a half feet of him towered over Priest.

"You could have had class!" barked Priest, "You could have made something of the whole bloody ordeal! But instead you sulk around Egland for two and a half centuries, obsessing about how I had shat all over you life!

You think life had been a walk in the park for me? It hasn't. You know what I've been doing while you've been feeling sorry for yourself? Sucking the marrow out of life. I've seen The Beatles in concert sixty-three times! I've slept with Oscar Wilde! I've shattered the Berlin Wall with a Hammer! I've drank Absinthe in the Moulin Rouge, I've been on the Titanic, I've went drinking with Brendan Behn! I met JFK and played billiards with Richard Nixon! I've been to Woodstock!!"

"Impressive. But one thing you didn't is bring a sword." said MacLeod as he reached into his coat, while the sky roared, the storm grew and thunder filled creation.

"I don't need one," said Priest as he stepped back a few feet, allowing MacLeod to raise his broadsword and hold it before him with both hands, "I already have you beat. The truth is, I've made all the years mean something, you didn't. You can NEVER change that.

"And one more thing; you Immortals are all sterile, right? Well, I had a son, a _human_ son. His name was Frank. Ponder THAT!"

"I'm going to enjoy gutting you." said MacLeod as he charged, to which Priest said with the widest grin he ever cracked, "Bring it on."

* * *

I'd like to apologize if this story has been dragging lately, won't happen again.

**Next Chapter:** The Sound of Thunder! Mona and Priest's final day in London.


	46. The Sound of Thunder

**Now**

_Putney_

Mona turned the doorknob with her left hand as the rest of her body took cover next to the door with her right hand clutching a gun, she pushed the door open then pulled her arm back as a shotgun went off inside the apartment, firing a bullet that shot into the concrete wall outside the door.

Without hesitation, Mona bolted into the apartment, guns blazing. To see Little Chris tied to a chair, bruises covering his bare chest, blacked eyed and with a ruptured lip. The blast had come from a shotgun tied to a chair and aimed at the door, rigged with a tripwire to the doorknob so that the trigger would be pulled when the door was opened.

"Thank Christ!" said Little Chris.

"Is anyone in here?"

"No... The Bastard left three hours ago."

"Alright, let's get you out of here. Where's the bomb?"

"I'm sitting on it."

Mona holstered her gun and went behind Little Chris to see what was threatening his life. It was a bomb consisting of an explosive charge with a detonator embedded in it and two devices connected to the detonator, one was a timer counting down from three minutes and the other appeared to be a sensor connected to the seat, preventing Little Chris from moving.

"Can you disarm it?"

"Last bomb I had to disarm was five years ago, I've gone a little rusty."

"What? Oh, christ."

"Don't worry, young man, I'm alllllll over it."

* * *

_Hyde Park, London_

"Cor Blimey, I wasn't sure that was going to work." said Priest, who stood a few feet away from Macleod. He took off his coat and tossed it over at the bench.

"Wh..." mumbled MacLeod as he lay on the ground, feeling tremendous pain in his chest, "What happened?"

"You got hit with a thunderbolt in the chest, sonny Jim."

"How could you...?"

"Well, there's a little story behind that." said Priest as he leaned down to pick up MacLeod's broadsword, "Truth is; you were right to call me a cheating cunt. Tell me, do you remember when this place was called Serpentine Park?"

MacLeod howled loudly in pain as he tried to get up but couldn't.

"Don't even try it, mate. You won't be decapitating anyone for a while. The truth is, before Hyde Park was Hyde Park, it was a lot more than Serpentine Park. There aren't many people, not even two dozen as a matter of fact, who know that centuries and centuries ago, long before Christianity had found its way in Albion, terrible gods were worshiped here on this very spot; Gods such as **Cthulhu**, the tentacles terror. The god demanded tributes in innocents blood and virgin's flesh, and it was not left wanting. All that may be of merely academic interest to you, but what need concern you is that due to those ancient practices, this place can be considered... Holy Ground."

"You bastard!" cursed MacLeod painfully.

"Now, you Immortals have your own doctrines that must be adhered to, don't you? There is a particular rule that must never be broken or the world might just come down in burning boulders. The rule as you know is; No Immortal must ever practice an act of violence upon Holy Ground. Well, now you know why there is such a rule. I am a clever wanker, aren't I?"

"Just... kill me already."

"Aye, I might." said Priest as he tossed the sword up in the air like a baton and caught it with ease with his other hand as it came down, "I've half a mind to put you out of your misery, end a life of self-loathing, guilt and angst, not to mention you deserve it, because you might have killed both Mona and Little Chris. On the other hand, a lot of it my fault, and getting hit in the chest by a thunderbolt is bad enough."

"Kill me." said MacLeod tearfully.

"Not yet... Mona might be dead, and if that is it, then you're not going to die, not for ages! So now, we wait."

A minute later, Priest's phone beeped. He took it out and read the incoming text message then placed it back into his pocket.

"Lucky for you, Mona is an Extraordinary woman, she and Chris made it."

"So what know?" asked MacLeod with a raspy voice.

"A Pirate called Teague once told me something profound," said Priest, "He said; Immortality isn't about living forever, it's about living forever with yourself.

"The truth is; I am a horrible, horrible monster; there's no changing that. And even though I've done unspeakable things, I don't feel the sufficient amount of remorse for it. I mean I would do everything different I could do it all over, but I can't. I've learned to live with what I've done and what I am. So the question is, can you live knowing that I'm still out there, undead, with your vengeance left unfulfilled?" said Priest, then put the blade to its owner's neck.

"Or can you not?" asked Priest as Thunder filled creation and lightening split the sky in half.

* * *

**The Following Day**

"The King told us that Eddie Temple met about MacGuffin with a friend of his called Jimmy Price, whom the King previously worked for, Jimmy Price passed the issue to Doug the Head, a diamond dealer, who passed it on to Avi Gellar, a minor New York criminal." said Mona as she, Sands and Priest sat at the bar in the Winchester, "He said that then showed us the door."

"I fuckin' hate gangsters." said Priest as he rubbed his eyes, "Are you okay with Big Chris?"

"I think we're going to go through a cold phase of our partnership," said Sands, "We'll eventually pass it. Little Chris seems to be smitten with you, though."

"Shaun!" called Priest, "Drinks!"

"Comin' up, Guv."

"So this is the end of us, then." said Sands, "Next time you're in London, you know what to do."

"We're gonna miss you in New York, Sheldon." said Mona.

"I'm gonna miss you too, Mona."

"First name basses, eh?" asked Priest, "Would you like a moment alone or some somefink?"

"Here you go," said a young attractive blond woman as she placed three glasses before the trio, "Three V's; Vodka double, Virgin Mary and a Vesper."

Shaun arrived and wrapped his arms around the barmaid, saying, "Guys, this is Liz, my wife. Liz, these are Sands, Priest and Mona."

"Hello." said Liz, the trio greeted her and the couple soon went on their way.

"Am I alone in thinking that the King might have been feeding us a load?"

"No," said Priest, "If he is, though, we can come back and beat the living daylights out of him. That would be fun."

"Did you get your tickets yet?" asked Sands.

"No, they were booked solid."

"I'll have my people make some calls; we can get you on a plain tonight."

"Let me ask you something, Sands, how come we never get to meet your people or see where you live?"

"Operational security, old man. It would be fun if we could all be open and honest with each other, but the fact is there are things you don't need to know, and there are things you don't WANT to know."

* * *

**Next Chapter:** Mona and Priest's take on New York with unexpected results, and turn to would be lovers. 


	47. One Night in New york

**Now**

_American Airspace_

"You need to relax, kid," said Priest without opening his eyes as he sat at an isle seat on the airplane, "We're an hour away from landing, and then it'll be a nice couple of hours or so going through immigration."

"Why did we have to fly coach?" asked Mona nervously.

"It's all they had. What's the deal with you?"

"Do I need to draw you a picture?" asked Mona, then leaned to her side and whispered, "We're gonna be working in New York for God knows how long, and if you recall, I blew out of a maximum security prison six months ago!"

"Okay, you've got the right to get all your panties in a bunch."

"Wait, when did you switch accents again? You know what, never mind."

* * *

**One Day Later**

_Manhattan, New York_

" I hear you want to have a word with me." said Avi Gellar, a mustached man of seventy with gray hair, as he sat on his chair behind his desk in his office, situated on the twenty-fifth floor of the Baxter Building. Mona and Priest, Gellar's guests followed suit.

"My name is Lisa Smith, this is my associate George Kaplan." said Mona, "We represent a third party requiring certain information."

"Just skip to the chase, what do you want?"

"Did you know Douglas Green, also known as Doug the Head?"

"Yeah, Cousin Doug from London; he died a couple of years ago. What about him?"

"In the summer of Eighty-Eight, Green contacted you in regards with a man known as Gideon MacGuffin. We need to know what happened between you two."

Gellar stared at the two of them for a few moments and then asked, "This third party you work for, who are they?"

"We can't really say."

"Alright, why do they need to know?"

"We can't say about that either."

"I see." said Gellar calmly and then pressed the button on his intercom, saying, "Janine, get security."

"Mister Gellar," said Mona, "This is all unnecessary, we just want to know what did he need, it's very important."

"Not in your lifetime, honey."

Two men in black blazers then came through the door and stood directly behind Mona and Priest. They didn't need to say anything about why they were there, as it was obvious that they would welcome the chance to rough up and toss the pair out if they refused to leave quietly.

"It's about time you two assholes got out of my goddamn office."

"Okay, Mister Kaplan," said Mona, "We might as well pack up and go home."

"Yes, ma'am."

They both got up and slowly headed for the door, the two men right behind them to make sure they were not about to make any change of plans.

With not a single warning, Priest whipped his fist back, smacking the man behind him in the cheek. The blow came at an impossible angle, as it would have wrenched any man's arm out of the socket, and so it came out of blue. And as the man staggered back, Priest spun around with a martial arts kick to the head that knocked him into a wall, causing a massive indentation.

At the same time, Mona had stomped down on the other man's foot with one of her pointed heels and then followed with an elbow to his throat.

"Mona!" said Priest as he tossed her a gun, "Think quick."

Mona caught the gun in mid air and slammed it's but into the man's head, knocking him down.

"Jesus Christ!" exclaimed Gellar then attempted to reach the intercom.

"Uh-uh, you touch that thing and I'll shoot you both." said Mona.

"Okay okay," said Gellar as he raised both his hand, "You win! Don't shoot."

"I'll be helping myself to your booze," said Priest as he headed to the liquor cabinet in the corner, "That is if you don't mind."

"Sure, go ahead." said Gellar, "Listen, miss; what the hell are you hoping to accomplish? Do you realize what kind of trouble you got yourself into?"

"Well, let's see; I have a gun to your head, some might say that makes you the one in trouble."

"You'd go to jail."

"I'm already supposed to be there." said Mona as she thumbed back the hammer, "Now, my friend is going to have a drink, and I'm going to have a seat, and you're going to have five minutes to tell me all you want to know."

"Fine, fine. What was it that-"

"You know what this is about; MacGuffin, ever met him?"

"Yeah, of course." said Gellar, "That was in the late Eighties, big English guy, right? He didn't say much but it was obvious that he was in a world of trouble; he wanted to disappear, I mean fake his death, like."

"And you helped?"

"Hey lady, I'm a loan shark, I deal with gambling and diamonds sometimes, but that's way out of my rachet. No, I introduced him to someone who could help him."

"Who?"

"That depends, are you gonna treat him like you treated me?"

"Maybe."

"Well, in that case it was Tommy Vercetti."

"Vercetti?" asked Priest as he placed a now empty bottle of liquor back in the cabinet, then walked over to the guard that Mona knocked out who was starting to get up and took him by the arm and twisted it, keeping him down.

"Yeah," said Gellar, "We both used to work for the Forelli family in Liberty City, then he went to Prison and when he got out, he headed out to Florida and set up his empire in Vice City, against the Forellis' wishes. By that time I moved here and so it didn't matter that he was going up against him, we stayed in touch and had a decent relationship, we scratched each others' back on occasion. I set MacGuffin up with him and that was all I know about it."

"You seem a little to eager to betray your friend's trust." said Mona, "You expect me to believe you?"

"Ask anyone and they'll tell you all about the time Vercetti shafted me. In 1992 he stole a suitcase of diamonds right from under me, the little ratfuck! Tell you what; if you gave him a good kicking then I'll but you both a drink next time you're in New York. Is that it? Can you put down that gun, now?"

Mona wasn't paying attention to him, as she had spaced out halfway through his rant as a headline on a newspaper on Gellar's desk caught her eye.

"Well, you're gonna give me a heart attack!"

Mona snapped out of it and lowered the gun, dismantling it with one hand as she stepped back saying, "Don't... don't come looking for us."

Priest let go of the man on the ground and stood up, heading for the door after Mona. Once they were gone Gellar spoke to the man on the floor.

"Ephrim... Ephrim are you Okay?"

"Yeah, boss."

"Well, you're fired. Wake Ben and tell me he's fired too."

* * *

"That was quick." said Priest as he and Mona stepped out onto the streets of Manhattan, "From now on, _you_ do all the talking. TAXI!"

The cab that Priest hoped to hail passed him by without stopping, Priest put his hand down and looked to the left to see when another one would come along.

"You must be glad, right? All we have to do is lay low till we can get to Vice City and we're Scot free. TAXI!"

Mona was looking blankly into space and didn't pay attention to Priest as he jabbered on.

"Mona, are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost."

She slowly turned her head toward him, though didn't really look him in the eye, and asked, "Can you get us a flight in the morning?"

"I can probably get us a flight for tonight, probably."

"No, I need the night to do some... I just need the night."

"I thought you were scared of getting caught."

"It's important."

"Sure, whatever you say. When are you going?"

"Umm... Now, I guess."

"In a hurry, huh? Want me to come along; watch your back?"

"No, I'll be okay. Just go, tell Nemo what we found out, text me with the time of our flight and I'll meet you in the Airport."

A cab finally stopped Next to Priest and Mona, the first headed to the door and opened it, then looked back and said, "Are you sure you don't need me?"

Mona was already walking away by then in the opposite direction, Priest got into the cab which promptly drove off.

As Priest was being taken away, Mona headed directly for the nearest News Paper stand, reaching into her jacket pocket for anything she could get her hand on.

"Daily Bugle, please." she said, then handed the vendor a crumpled twenty dollar bill and walked away.

"Hey, lady!" called the vendor, "What about your change?"

Mona unfolded the paper as she walked down the street, turning the pages seeking a headline she had fleetingly read ten minutes ago in Avi Gellar's office. And there it was, on page Fifteen, a report on a hostage situation gone bad last night in Hell's kitchen that resulted in three dead assailants, five hostages wounded, one officer down and an N.Y.P.D. Detective in critical care.

"Oh, no..."

* * *

_Brooklyn, New York_

"Alright, you little bastard," yelled John Harding as he picked up a sledgehammer of the floor from among countless bottles of beer and boxes of pizza, then walked grinning widely to the door behind which someone was persistently knocking, "Prepare for some hurt!"

Harding opened the door and raised the hammer above his head, preparing to swing it down on his unwelcomed visitor, when his grin evaporated and the lit cigartette lodged between his teeth dropped to the floor.

"John Wesley Harding, you're a poor excuse for southern hospitality." said the visitor.

"Priest? You're not dead?"

"Yes, I am dead. But that never stopped me before has it? Are you going to let me in?"

"Sure. Hehe! Come on In!"

Harding stepped back, allowing Priest to walk in. Harding then tossed the hammer aside.

"Erm, sorry about all the mess. I had a little part last night."

"I bet you did." said Priest as he swept trash off of the couch and sat on it.

"Where have you been? Last I saw you was seven months ago, when you said you were going to spend some time in Minnesota. Then a few months ago I read that you got iced in a hyper-mart in Hell's Kitchen. What the hell happened?"

"I spent a couple of months in Gotham; then I spent three in LA and then London for a few weeks."

"And the hyper-mart thing?"

"I needed to shake the cops off my tail."

"Fair enough. Made any money?"

"Yep, of which you get none, so don''t even try."

"Nuts," said Harding, "Well, it's all water under the bridge. The Priest is back in business, the sky'll be the limit!"

"I regret to inform you that The Priest has retired from the drug trade."

Harding broke out laughing out loudly, slapping his knee and clutching his chest, eventually grabbing his chest and coughing. "Good one, Judas! Haaha!"

Once the fit ended, he looked back at Priest and saw he that his expression was anything but joking.

"Wait, are you serious?"

"Like bowel cancer."

"Aww, come on, man! The Corleones are trying to make a comeback; they'll need some hardcore professionals like you and me. Vincent Mancini was asking me about you the other week, said he'd like you to handle the Substance C jobs! This is it, man, we're made!"

"Sorry, John, I'm done. I've been haulin' drugs from cost to cost for the past thirty years and I' sick of it."

"It's a woman, isn't it?" asked Harding angrily and stood up and started pacing, "FUCK! You've met someone and she wants you t go clean and you're horny enough to do what she says!"

"That's not it at all, John. John... John, are you crying?"

"I'm not crying! I'm mad as hell!"

"I didn't know you cared about me that much, John." said Priest with a smirk.

"Well, Vampire gangsters are hard to come by."

"Have you considered Werewolves? Look, John, sorry. We had a great run; twenty-five years of pulling down scores and raising hell, but you didn't expect us to last for this long, did you?"

"No. But..."

"We'll still be buddies, man. Whenever I'm in New York, I'll be sure to visit."

"Like the last time, when you faked your death?"

"Sorry about that, but I couldn't have stayed in town when I was supposed to be dead, could I?"

"Look, you still got my money?"

"Your money? You mean your life savings?"

"Yeah, the money I've made from all the trafficking, the sanctioned mob hits, the heists; all of it, you got it?"

"Yeah."

"How much is it?"

"A little under six-mill."

"What?! Last I checked it was in the neighborhood of three and a half."

"Yeah, I invested some of them a few years ago and made a killing."

"Man, I told you not tot do that!"

"Look, you want it or not?"

"Yeah."

"How soon?"

"I can wait."

"I'll get it," said Harding, "Don't worry."

* * *

_Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan_

Mons walked past the trio of police officers as she made her way through the intensive care unit of Saint Jude's Hospital, knowing that as long as she wore the white coat and had the stethoscope around her neck, she would probably escape detection.

She finally arrived at her destination, a private room completely vacant except for its soul occupant.

Mona approached the patient, a chill traveled up her spine as she saw the state the man was in; unconscious with a heavily bandaged chest, breathing with the help of respirator, an IV drip was pumping morphine into his veins, keeping him sedated.

As her ghastly fascination subsided, she picked up the clipboard from the bed frame and started reading it.

The patient's name as she already knew was Max Payne, a Lieutenant Detective with NYPD. Rushed in last night after being the first to arrive at the scene of a Bank Robbery that turned into a hostage situation. The situation escalated as time went on and a shootout occurred, during which Detective Payne was shot in the chest. According to the clipboard, he had already undergone two surgeries, and was in stable yet critical condition.

"You've gotten old, Max," said Mona as she put the clipboard in place and sat on a chair next to his bed, putting her legs up on the frame, "In the old days, you would have been up and at 'em by now."

The first time Mona and Max had met, it was in a Gothic nightclub filled with the bullet ridden bodies of mobsters. Back then, Payne was framed for a murder he didn't commit and in the middle of a killing spree directed at the city's criminal element. At the conclusion of that meeting, she drugged him and left him to be taken by the very people he was out to get.

A few years after that, she had crossed paths with him again, and they became entageled in a deadly gang war which she was hired to kill Max at the end of, but didn't, since somehow, amid all the violence and bloodshed the two of them, lonely suicidal killers, had somehow developed affection for each other, and when the moment came to it, she couldn't do her job, she let her gun down and showed him there was still hope after all, of course, she was then shot in the back by a Russian mob boss. C'est la vie.

Max had avenged her that very night, and she somehow survived, but was all the god news there was. She slipped into a two months long coma, and within a month of recovering, she was on her way to Prison to serve a life sentence for multiple counts of murder in the first degree. The last time they saw each other was at her sentencing, he tried to tell her something after the verdict was read but she simply pushed him away and allowed herself to be taken away by the court officers.

She had seen him briefly and unexpectedly a few months ago, when she had to help Priest fake his death. He had arrived to investigate the murder, and though he didn't see her, she certainly saw im, and it shook her to the core.

"Max, I'd love to stay, but you're unconscious and I'm a fugitive." said Mona as she got up from her seat and stepped to Max's side, leaning down to kiss him on the lips.

"Get better, Max." said Mona as she walked away and headed for the door, "Goodbye."

* * *

**Next Chapter:** I haven't decided it, it will be either Priest and Mona in _Vice City, Florida_, or it will be about Mina Jekyll in therapy. 


	48. Scarface

**Now**

_Vice City, Florida_

"Where do you know Tommy Vercetti from?" asked Mona as she stood on the balcony, basking in the warmth of the bright Florida sun and looking out at the Coastline, while Priest sat inside Mona's suite in the Midland Hotel, curled up in the room's darkest corner.

"One of Vercetti's lawyers used to be the father of my girlfriend in Ninety-Four." said Priest, "You know how lawyers are, and mob lawyers are decidedly worse. He was cheating his boss behind his back, embezzling money and depositing it into an offshore bank account, only he wasn't terribly good at it and was generally a fuck-up. When Vercetti learned of what was going on, I was in Tijuana and Sophia's father was upstate in Miami. Once he heard that the cat was out of the bag, he found himself a nice hole somewhere and hid like hell.

"So Vercetti did what a man like Vercetti is known to do in such situations; he tried to get his money back and he tried to get even, and to do both, he had to find the lawyer. When his men couldn't find the lawyer, they did the predictable thing and kidnapped Sophia, hoping to flush her dad out."

"And then what happened?"

"He was too scared, or maybe he didn't care about Sophia, whatever; point is that he never stepped forward, and so Vercetti had to make good on him promise and he killed her. Shot my girl twice in the head, and god only knows what sick and depraved shit she went through before that happened."

"Priest..." said Mona softly as she came back in, taking off her sunglasses, "I'm sorry if this is too painful for you, if you want we can do it later.."

"Its okay." said Priest while he pinched the bride of his nose as he often did, "I learned all that when I returned and the damage had been done. So, after taking a week to sulk, bury Sophia and unsuccessfully try to get wasted, I decided it was high time someone answered for what happened to her. My first instinct was to go after her dad first, then Vercetti. Three days later, I had Sophia's old man all primed up for a gruesome death when he convinced me that he might have slightly gave a damn about Sophia, and that she was probably dead either way and him stepping up to the plate wouldn't have made a difference.

"We made a deal; I'd let him walk, and he'd help me get my hands on Vercetti, who had more firepower and men to take bullets for him then the President, all of which I could get past with the help of what the old man knew about Vercetti's mansion."

"So why didn't you kill Vercetti?"

"It wasn't from lack of trying. I followed Sophia's dad's instructions to a T, I got half the way through before realizing that Sophia's father had sold my hide for his own neck; gave Vercetti the heads in exchange for him calling off the dogs.

"It didn't stop me, though, I managed to get all the way to his bedroom, caught him in bed with three of his escorts. I could have killed him, but I get cocky; tried to make him suffer first."

"What did you do to him?"

Priest looked up at Mona and smirked grimly.

"Ever heard of a Chelsea grin?"

"Hmmm."

"Yeah, I gave him one on his right cheek, and when I went to work on the left, his men caught up with me and shot me in the back with M-4s. They shot me right off him and through the window, I fell by his swimming pool and shattered my nose into no less than twenty pieces, so I got up and ran like hell.

"My nose grew back soon enough, by then Vercetti had decided to go back on his word and kill Sophia's dad anyway, seeing as how he sent me in the first place. Vercetti got hit where it hurt most; his ego, he learned that he was not untouchable, and was reminded of it every time he looks at a mirror and saw himself smirking with no will of his own."

"So has justice been fulfilled?" asked Mona, "Was Sophia's death avenged?"

"Well, her dad became worm food, and Vercetti was known from that day on as Scarface. But to answer your question... No, I don't think justice had been served. It probably has something to do with Sophia herself, despite whom her father was, she was an idealist, she believed in things and didn't stand down or take shit from anyone, including me. Hell, she even got me to quit working three weeks before she was murdered. No, maiming the bastard responsible didn't bring justice to Sophia."

"Alright, let me ask you this; Are you gonna be a professional and not let your feelings get in the way of getting what we need out of Vercetti?"

A lengthy silence followed.

"Priest?"

"Sure, probably. But… Would it be too much if we could make him suffer?"

"It wouldn't, but it all depends on one thing; how do you feel about being bait?"

* * *

_Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean_

"What are you grinning about?" asked Nemo as he rubbed his eyes as he sat at the communications desk, "I was catching the first bit of sleep in days, this better be good."

"We found him." said Mason and his smile grew wider.

"Who? MacGuffin?"

"No, your old friend."

All sleepiness left Nemo, and with wide eyes he asked, "Are you sure?"

"Positive. I have an Agent monitoring his every movement."

"Has he contacted him?"

"For the time being, he'll avoid all contact with him and simply watch from afar till we choose to do otherwise.

"He's been living in Latveria for two years, under the assumed name of Father Patrick McKenzie."

"He's posing as a Priest? The gall!" asked Nemo with mild contempt.

"No, that's why I'm smiling! It seems that handsome devil has truly found god, he's been ordained by the church of England for as far as the seventies, maybe earlier."

**

* * *

****One Day Later**

_Vice City, Florida_

Mr. Baker nervously knocked on the door, hoping that he wouldn't hear anyone allowing him in so that he wouldn't have to break the news to the boss.

"Come in." came the voice from behind the door.

"Damn..." muttered Baker to himself as he turned the knob and pushed the door open.

He treaded lightly in, expecting the unexpected as one often had to when it came to dealing with his employer.

The Boss was sitting in a leather armchair with his back to the door, watching a football game on a large screen plasma TV and holding a glass of Scotch in one hand and a lit Cuban cigar in another. The silk curtains were drawn on open windows, letting in a warm sea breeze and casting a suffocating dim lighting in the room.

"What is it, Mike?" asked the Boss.

"Uhm, Big Al called, said that the Haitians are backing down."

"Good." said the Boss, "Send a couple of guys over to Little Haiti and have them make some noise, to make those bastards clearly understand who's calling the shots from now on."

"Right away, Sir..." said Mr. Baker nervously and staid in place, unsure how to say what he really came to say.

"Well? Is that all?"

"No, sir. Big Al said something else."

"What did Big Al say?"

"Big Al said that one his girls saw a man leaving the Pole Position strip club in Ocean Beach... She said he looked a lot like ... like Judas Priest."

The glass of scotch shattered in the Boss's hand. Tommy Vercetti stood up and lodged the cigar between his lips, then went into the nearby bathroom to get a towel to wipe the flecks of shattered glass and blood from his hand.

Mr. Baker's heart raced as he watched his Boss, Tommy Vercetti exit the bathroom in his direction, blowing a cloud of foul smelling smoke as he wrapped the white cotton towel around his fist. He was of Italian ancestry and of sixty, though he still had a powerful build, his complexion was tanned, and his hair was shiny and black and streaked with gray. His eyes were bright blue and filled with immense power, but his most distinguishing feature was a hideous scar on his right cheek, extending from the corner of his lip to an inch away from his ear, a scar that created a permanent and grotesque appearance of smirking; earning him the unenviable moniker of Scarface.

"We're going to this strip club Big Al mentioned; me, you, the three downstairs and a couple of baseball bats. Get a couple of guys to watch the cemetery where his girlfriend was buried, tell them not to move till she shows up. Now go get the Mercedes ready and tell the three."

"Y-Yes Sir."

* * *

_Doomstadt, Latveria_

A young man and a young woman sat around a table in a dark hotel room. One of them was Mernae Watts, the other was a man of a similar if not slightly older age, and had red hair and Eurasian features, wore light blue jeans and a black leather coat over a white jumper.

"There were these three blokes, right?" said the Eurasian man in an Irish brogue, "An Imperial guardsman from the Forbiden City, a samurai from Okinawa and some guy from Belfast. All three were after my great-great grandmother's hand in marriage, so to choose who among them is best fit to be bestowed upon with such an honor, he proposed a contest to determine who is the best with a blade.

"The Chinaman goes first, he picks up his sword and waits till a fly comes flying by, and he waved his sword quicker than you could see and **BAM!** The fly fell to the floor in two pieces.

"The Chinaman went to sit down, thinking he'd won. The samurai has other ideas and stand up confidently and unsheathes his katana, waits for another fly to come by and two waves later, the fly falls to the floor in four pieces!

"The Chinaman knows he's been beat and sulk, the samurai is beaming with pride and blows the daughter a kiss. The father of the bride knows he's found his son in law but decides to give the Irishman a shot in the interest of fairness. So Liam O'Shaughnessy stand up and picks up his machete, waits for a fly to come by and slices at the air about ten or twelve times. Finally the father of the bride yells 'STOP! You've had your shot and you blew it!'. 'How so?' asked O'Shaughnessy, to which the father of the bride said 'It's still alive, isn't it?'

"So Liam O'Shaughnessy, my great-great grandfather smiles wide and says 'Aye it is, but it'll never 'ave any wee fly kiddies after what I've done to it.' The End."

"Surely your great-great-great grandfather didn't but it." said Mernae.

"'Course not, she was betrothed to the Samurai, but ran away to Ireland with my great-great Grandfather where they were wed and lived happily ever after, that is until he was run down by an offal cart ten years later."

Mernae sighed and leaned forward, saying, "What are you doing here, Mashu? Don't you have work to do?"

"Ha! You call what I have to do work? It's an insult, is what it is!"

"This man has abilities unmatched by anyone else in the world. It's a job that must be done."

"It doesn't have to be done by me. I mean have you ever tried watching a Priest going about his Priesty business? It's boring!"

"Oh for god's sake, you've only been at it for three days!"

"Feels much longer."

"Well, you're going to keep doing it." said Mernae as she stood up and picked up her suitcase, "I'm off back to London. I'll try and convince Mason to-"

"Oh, thank you! You're going to convince him to send someone to replace me, right?"

"No, definitely not. But maybe we'll send someone else to watch Father McKenzie every other day so that you can unwind."

"Fat good it'll do me." said Mashu, "Look, I don't belong here. I belong in the field, this is silly! I'm not a spook, I'm an assassin! This isn't what I'm trained to do!"

"Take care, Mashu." said Mernae as she headed to the door.

"Mason think I work for the League, doesn't he?"

Mernae stopped in the doorway and looked back at Mashu.

"That's why I'm here," continued Mashu, "He thinks that I'm the League-trained operative that has infiltrated the opposition and has been leaking information. That's why I'm here; so that I don't do any damage or for him to have enough time to figure out what to do with me, right? This priest that I'm supposed to be watching, there's nothing special about him, he's just a Priest, isn't he? This whole thing's a sham."

"Mashu, stay away from the bottle, have a good night's sleep and have a decent breakfast in the morning. I'll call you tomorrow. Please keep an eye on Father McKenzie, alright?"

Mernae shut the door as she left, leaving Mashu all alone.

"I'm in Hell."

* * *

A Chelsea Grin, otherwise knows as a Glasgow Smile is a practice originating in Glasgow, Scotland and becoming prominent in gang related violence in Chelsea, London. It basically is carving the victims face from the corner of the mouth and across the cheek, giving the appearance of a smile. Have you seen pictures of the Joker from the upcoming sequal to Batman Begins? That's a chelsea grin. 

**Next Chapter: **Tune in next time where Priest is bait, and Jumpin' Jack Flash makes his debute, possibly.

Also, reviews have been low lately, please make an old kid happy. I'd especially like one from one of those who never reviewed before I KNOW YOU"RE THERE!!!


	49. Vice

**Now**

_Doomstadt, Latveria_

Ask any woman and they'd tell you that they had a certain reason for coming to church and listening to Father McKenzie's sermons, and that reason was not at all Christian.

The vicar did not look like most men of the cloth, nor like most men for that matter. He was the epitome of masculine beauty, tall and lean, his hair was luscious, soft and black, and his skin was without a single blemish.

Father MacKenzie stood at the pulpit and went through the pieces of paper nestled between the pages of his bible, preparing to read to the members of his congregation gathered for the Sunday service.

"Christ, I hate Sundays..." muttered Mashu O'Shaughnessy as he sat in the back pew.

"Good afternoon, my brothers and sisters," said Father MacKenzie in Dutch, his voice as soft as velvet, "For today's sermon I have saw fit to you about those deeds whose temptation of constantly plague our souls. I'm going to talk to you about vice itself..."

* * *

_Vice City, Maryland_

"Right. My name is Judas Priest, Y'all can call me Mister Priest." said Priest as he lit the cigarette in his mouth, addressing a dozen men gathered in the backroom of a seedy bar. Sergei Yurinov, a massive, bearded, long haired Russian man in a football jersey stood a few feet away to his left.

"I know none of you, but Sergg here says you're all hungry and reliable, and Sergg is not a liar.

"The hungry ones are always the most dangerous, they just want to get full, you know? You all try your best to get as full as possible, but never manage to get there, you're always just a bit peckish at the end. You probably wonder what we're doing here, and I'm not the kind of guy to beat around the bush. I'll tell you what we're going to do is replace the regime in power with us."

"What are you talking about?" asked one of the gathered hitmen and gangsters.

"Did y'all hear of Tommy Vercetti? Big Italian guy with a funny scar? He runs this town, owns the cops and the politicians and gets all the fun. It's about time we all had our turns, wouldn't you think?"

The small crowd exchanged looks of amused disbelief and outrage, before erupting in murmurs and curses.

"Don't you think you could have eased into it?" asked Sergei with a thick Russian accent as he leaned in to whisper into Priest's ear.

"Don't worry, I got."

"Are you fucking crazy? You wanna go up against Vercetti?" said another gangster.

"Exactly."

"Fuck you, man. You're mental!" barked a third, "What makes you think that you can do that?"

"'Cause I'm the one who gave him that Scar, shit-eyes." said Priest.

"No way, man! Vercetti killed the motherfucker that turned him into Scarface long ago."

"Is that what they say, Sergg?" asked Priest.

"That's what they say."

"Hmmm. Well, he couldn't admit that he got carved up like that and didn't get his payback, could he? It'd ruin his street-cred. Point is, I got unfinished business with Vercetti, and by the time I'm done with him, a new dawn will begin. The question is when dawn comes, will you be seizing the day, or will you still be sitting by the table waiting for the crumbs?"

"Bastard's got a point."

"Bastard's out of his damn mind!"

"Could be an opportunity."

"...So crazy that it could work..."

"...Don't even thinka about it..."

"Look," said Priest, raising his voice, "The Revolution is coming, there's no stopping it. Now, I'm going to the front and I'm gonna have me a drink. When I come back, you better decided whether or not you want to stay at the kiddies table for the rest of your life."

* * *

**One Week Ago**

"Big Al, you've been snorting too much of the shit." said Mr. Baker as he held his cell phone to his ear.

There was a sudden splash followed by an outburst of laughter in the pool area outside as Baker's party continued.

"What do you mean one of your girls saw Priest?... Saw him where?... The Pole Position? Well where is he now?... What do you mean you lost him? Are you saying that the man who carved up the Boss just blew back into town and you don't know where he went?... So now you're not sure if it was even him? Make up your damn mind, was it him or wasn't it?... Yeah, yeah... I'll tell him, there's no telling what he'll do when I do. But if he ever finds out that this happened and I didn't tell him he'll have my balls."

* * *

**Four Days Ago**

"Ever been to Gotham City, buddy?" asked Priest as he sat at the bar of a strip club in the afternoon, when only a handful of patrons were present, namely middle aged white-collars on their lunch hour, who had come to gawk at the over embellished women's bodies and sip some of the cheap swill.

"No, man." said the Bartender.

"You didn't miss much. Gotham City is just like this city, or any other city. Though it rains a heck of a lot more, like god chose it as his own fire hydrant."

"I hear they have some psycho who dresses up like a bat. Is that true?"

"Naw, man. Urban legend; a joke that got way out of hand. I'll have another Vodka double."

"You okay, man?" asked the Bartender as quickly poured the drink and handed to Priest.

"No, but who is?"

Priest gulped the drink at once, then slapped a fifty dollar bill on the bar.

"'You know Sergei Yurinov?"

"Yeah, sure."

"When you see him next time, give him a Black Russian and tell him it's from Judas Priest; that's my name, then tell him that I want to meet him as soon as possible. Keep the change."

* * *

**Three Days Ago**

"For the past few days, Priest has been checking up the talent all over the city." said Mr. Baker as he and Vercetti were in the latter's private suit, "He's rounding up a crew for some big Job. So far no one's agreed."

"Who has he been talking to?"

"Everyone. Yesterday he left a message for Sergei Yurinov in a strip club in Vice Point. Back in the day, Sergei and Priest were buddies, that was when he was still working for the Russian mob and was soar about you killing his brother-in-law.

"Boss, I think Priest might be planning to make a move against you."

"That much is obvious. Don't you think he knows that Sergeri is working for me these days?"

"Impossible, boss. Hardly anyone knows about that."

"What's Priest been doing for hte past few years?"

"Same-old, same-old. Worked for pretty much everone up the coast. Now here's the kicker, he was supposed to have been killed in New York."

"And what? He just climbed out of his grave?"

"Who knows? Hell, it happened before. Tony Suprano from Brooklyn stabbed him in the gut then dumped him in the Hudson once. Some injun guy once said he had the Devil in him, if you would believe it."

"Do we have a tail on him? Do we know where he's staying?"

"Sure. We can move in on him at any time we want."

"Alright, tell Sergeri to met up with him and join him if he asks, tell him to do whatever Priest wants. I want to know what this clown's angle is."

* * *

**Two Days Ago**

"Are you sure you want to do this?" asked Sergei as he and Priest sat by the catwalk, not really paying attention the dancer that strutted by them with her body on display.

"What I wanna do is finish up that smile I started all those years back. But this is the way it's gonna be. Are you in or are you out?"

"Oh, I'm in. But don't you think he'll wise up?"

"Don't worry about it. We'll cover up everything once we're done. You just make sure everything is fixed for tonight from now."

"I can round up the guys by tomorrow, I can introduce you to a few tonight, even."

"No, it has to be on Sunday night. Now finish your drink and give that girl a twenty, I heard her say she's working her way through med-school."

* * *

**Earlier Today**

"Somebody talked," said Mr. Baker, "That's the only explanation."

"Alright, Mitch," said Vercetti, "Just what exactly are the cops watching?"

"Everything! The pier, the clubs, my house, yours. My guy at the Police Department said that Captain Tubbs is putting eveyman he has on us tonight. They must know about the shipments that are coming in!"

"What of damage control?"

"I got them to delay the shipments tonight. We had to take a pass on that other thing. All in all, we won't loose too bad.

"There's still the matter with Priest, Tommy. He and Yurinov are meeting with their crew tonight, they're all loyal to us, of course. We can't take him anywhere tonight, boss, not unless we want the cops to find out. Boss... We might have to let him go tonight."

Vercetti looked into the silver flaks of cognac in his hand, looking intently at his reflection.

"No, bring him to the yacht."

* * *

Now

"I'm back," said Priest, lighting a second cigarette as he walked through the door to the back room, "Hey, where'd Sergg go?"

Sergei jumped out from where he was hidden, brandishing a woden baseball bat and viciously swinging it down on Priest's head.

Over a dozen guns were pulled out and pointed at Priest as he lay on the ground, blood gushing from his wounded scalp. Sergei swung the bat down once again, hitting Priest between the shoulder blades, then straightened up and kicking him in the ribs.

"Get him, Sergei! Fuck! Him! UP!"

The small mob coaxed Sergei into abusing his old friend some more, and he did not fail them as he kicked Priest so hard that he was lifted up in the air the air and sent slamming into a pillar, before falling down belly up and bleeding from the mouth.

"Ser... Sergei..." siad Priest painfully, "You... shit! Vercetti killed your wife's... brother!"

"I know, man. I know." said Sergei with his thick accent, "But hey, I got real hungry... And Vercetti had the keys to the kitchen. You should have gotten over Sophia, Priest."

"Go... SCREW YOURSELF!!"

Sergei raised his massive foot, then slammed it down with unrelenting power into Priest's face.

"You shoulda stayed the hell out of Vice City."

* * *

**Two Hours Later**

All day long, Tommy Vercetti had been looking upon his reflection, more so than he ever did. It was not out of vanity, but out of rage, and the every time he looked upon a mirror, or caught a glimpse of himself in a window and saw that hideous scar across his left cheek, looking like some grotesque grimace, the gray grew longer as he impatiently waited till he would get his hands on the man responsible.

Vercetti al but races down below deck of his Yacht, The Bella Donna, to get to where the man was brought. He paused one last time as he stood outside the cabin's room, taking a cigar out of his pocket and lodging it between his teeth before lighting it, and with one final look into his reflection on the metal lighter, Vercetti charged in.

"Tommyyyyyyy!" said Priest with a wide grin as he sat at a chair in the middle of the room with a black eye and a busted lip and his hands cuffed behind his back, flanked by a trio of Vercetti's men.

"Why are you smiling, Tommy? Do I have something in my teeth?"

A massive fist nearly tore Priest's jaw off. The man in the chair spat his blood and a couple of teeth onto the floor.

"Boys, go above deck. Have a couple of drinks."

The three men left in haste, leaving Priest and Vercetti all alone.

"You're... younger than I would have thought. What are you? Thirty-Seven? Forty? You must've been a kid last time we met."

"I'm older than I look. Diet and Exercise, man."

"Diet and Exercise, huh?" said Vercetti with a chuckle, "That's very funny."

With one graceful motion that would seem impossible of a man of Vercetti's age, he raised his leg and kicked Priest directly in the side of the head, sending him flying off the chair.

Vercetti took a puff of his cigar and took off his jacket, while Priest struggled to get to his feet, which was not an easy feet with all the beating he'd already taken and with his hand cuffed behind him.

"You have no idea how long I've looked forward to this." said Vercetti before kicking Priest in the stomach.

"You know what's the worst part about my 'smile'?" asked Vercetti, when suddenly Priest tried to kick him in return, but only _tried _as Vercetti was able to catch his foot with both his hands.

"The worst is, it stings like you wouldn't believe when in rains."

Vercetti violently twisted the leg, sending Priest to the ground and kicking him in the knee, popping his leg out of its socket.

"You think that hurts?" asked Vercetti as he kneeled down and held his cigar in his hand, "Check this out."

Priest grunted like an animal, stifling a scream that would satisfy Vercetti to no end, as the cigar was extinguished on his earlobe.

"You know, I've been called many things, Patient was never one of them. Guess I used most of it when I was doing time in Liberty City, and the rest when I was in the hospital, waiting for the day that I could talk without feeling like my face was on fire.

"I figured that I would have started with kicking you around for an hour, then burn you here and there, and eventually we would move on to the main event. But the truth is I'm getting bored here, so I guess you better get ready for the main event."

Vercetti head-butted Priest in the jaw, then stood up and reached into his back pocket, taking out a butterfly knife than he unfolded. He reached down and grabbed Priest by the collar, and pressed the tip of the knife to a spot that was half an inch away from Priest's ear.

"It's smile time." said Vercetti, before slicing down and ripping all the way to the corner of his mouth.

* * *

_Will Judas Priest survive? Where the Hell is Mona Sax? What happened to Batman? Who the Hell if Father MacKenzie?_

_We'll see, we'll see, we'll see and you won't believe who Father MacKenzie really is!_


	50. The Third Degree

**Now**

_Florida_

"Jesus, Joey. There are days when I wish I was the President, there are days I wish I was Bruce Wayne, there are days I wish I was someone with better hair." said one of Vercetti's men as he stood next to another on deck, looking across the dark waters at the lights at Vice Beach two miles away.

"But tonight, I'm just glad I'm not that sun of a bitch down there with the boss."

"Damn skippy." said the other man, "Who is he anyway, Ritchie?"

"Didn't you hear? That's the dumb-fuck that gave the Boss that scar!"

"Shit, where'd they find 'em?"

"He was organizing a 'Revolution', I was there, he said that he wanted to take down Vercetti. You wanna know what was the funny part? All of us who were in on it are on the Boss payroll. You should've seen the look on his face when he walked back in and Sergei started beating the crap out of him with a baseball bat. You shoulda seen 'em, that Russian bastard's got moves, man. He was like Bull Durham."

"Hey man, you hear that?"

"The screaming? Probably the boss cutting off the guy's testes."

"No, not that. It was something else."

"Man, you've been smoking so much weed that it's affecting your head. Just a few minutes ago you had no idea who that guy was. Where's your brain Joey?"

A split second later, Joey's brain were splattered all over Ritch's chest. The dead mobster buckled to his knees and

"J-J-Jesus!"

Another second latter, Ritchie had been hit in the head with a bullet and fell back against the railing, flipping over the side and into the ocean.

A small slender figure emerged from nearby, holding a silenced pistol with fresh smoke of cordite pouring out of its barrel.

A distance away, two other men had taken notice to this quiet incident and looked on to see a strange woman, they were quick to reach for their machine guns and aim them at her.

* * *

Vercetti took a sip from a little bottle of brandy as he listened with glee to the tortured moans of Priest, who lay on the floor of the steerage cabin, his hands still cuffed behind his back. Vercetti looked upon him fallen enemy and felt a tingling sensation as he inspected what his hands had wrought; a great big scar that ran from ear to ear, a full blown Chelsea Grin.

"Please..."

"What? What did you say?" asked Vercetti as he stepped closer, pushing the back of one ear with his finger to listen better.

"Please... No more..." said Priest painfully, trying to move as less muscles as possible as he had while begging for mercy.

"Oh, this is too good to be true. HAHAHA!"

Vercetti slapped Priest across the cheek, tearing apart his flesh and smearing Vercetti's palm with blood.

"Now look what you did, you got blood on my sleeve. Christ!" said Vercetti in disgust as he wiped his hand, "Man, I can't believe I've been sulking for fifteen years over you! 'No more'? Are you sure you're the same guy I heard about?"

"P...please..."

"You're pathetic, you're hardly worth my time... You're-"

Just then, there was a distant sound of gunfire; a burst of machine gun fire coming from above followed by several consecutive shots from what sounded like a 'Nine.

"What the hell is that?" asked Vercetti as he got up from his seat and headed and looked up with his back to Priest.

"Oh, you heard that? I thought it was just me."

Vercetti spun around to look as Priest gracefully got up on one foot, his leg with the dislocated knee as limp as a noodle, blood spluttering from his slashed cheeks as he smiled deviously. He gritted his teeth as he appeared in the process of some demanding physical task, and with a sudden snap, both his hands rose upward, no longer bound by the handcuffs that were torn in half.

"Just one more thing."

Priest leaned down and held his leg with one hand; the with one sudden jerking movement twisted, grunting painfully as the bones snapped loudly into place.

"Shit, that stung." said Priest as he straightened up, Blood pouring out of his cheeks and down his neck, "But honestly, it was much more fun that listening to you jabber on and on and on and on. If I had to keep pulling that helpless act for one more minute, my brain was going to explode."

"You... you... What the fuck are you?"

"I'm pissed, Vercetti."

Panic touched Vercetti's heart, before rage overcame it and he charged forward, punching Priest in the jaw. But as he went for a second blow, Priest caught his wrist and then shoved his elbow into his adversary's throat, all but crushing his windpipe.

As Vercetti staggered back, gasping for air, Priest bobbed his head back and came down with a head-butt to his forehead, knocking Vice City's Emperor of Vice on his backside.

"Ask anyone," said Priest as he leaned down to pick up Vercetti's discarded butterfly knife, "And they'll say Judas Priest is any of many things; a soldier, a decent cook, a terrible dancer and a fantastic lover. But one thing no one will ever call me is a man who leaves a job half done."

Priest caught Vercetti by the Adam's apple and pulled him up, and with the other hand he swung the knife open. Vercetti tried to pry Priest's grip away from his neck, but didn't manage it even though he tried to do it with both hands.

"Now, time to smile like the gates of Hell."

Just as the tip of the knife was pressed into a spot that was an inch away from Vercetti's right cheek, and a single drop of blood ran down the side of his face from the small cut, the door to the cabin swung open.

"You're early, Mona, why don't you be a doll and come back in ten minutes."

Mona walked carefully into the cabin, brandishing a shotgun.

"Priest, get away from him."

"Alright, I can be done in five minutes." said Priest as he pressed the knife deaper into Vercetti face.

"Please! I'll do whatever you want, just get this freak away from me!"

"Priest," said Mona angrily as she pumped the shotgun, "Get away from him or so help me god I will shoot you."

"I'm afraid I can't do that."

"Priest, I'm warning you. We need him alive and coherent. You're bleeding like crazy from your face. I don't know if you can bleed to death but I prefer that you didn't, so go get upstairs and get yourself bandaged and leave us to talk."

"I'm cool, Mona. Just look the other way."

"Priest, goddamit! Just because I saved your life a couple of time doesn't mean I won't take it just as easy!"

Priest growled as he looked Mona in the eye, then let go of Vercetti's throat.

"You're no fun, Mona."

He stepped away from the mob boss who staid on his knees breathing on his knees and nursing his throat. Priest dropped the knife and walked out of the cabin.

"You and I need to have a talk."

* * *

Priest winced in pain as the needles went through the flesh of his cheeks, sowing the scar on his right cheek shut.

"Shit..." he cursed consistently as he continued to stitching his wound, and then went through the agonizing ordeal of doing the same to the other cheek. Minutes later, he wiped the blood off his face and looked himself in the mirror to inspect his handy work.

"Gah!"

Priest realized that simply stitching face back together wouldn't be enough his ear has been burned several time over with Vercetti's cigar, he had a black eye and a split nostril, no to mention a few missing teeth.

"I'm sooo not in my sexiest right now." mumbled Priest with a chuckle, and then shattered the mirror with a punch.

He went to find some bandages and started wrapping his head up, leaving only an opening for his eyes and mouth. He estimated that it'd take about two days for his scar to disappear completely, it would take half that much for the black eye and ear to heal, and a day more for his teeth to grow back.

Priest headed to where some of Vercetti's men lay dead, shot to hell by Mona and lying down in pools of bullet casings and their own blood. He reached down and pulled the corpse aside.

"Give it up, I know you've got it, I can smell it."

He retrieved a half-filled, blood-soaked bottle of Jack Daniel's, luckily surviving being crushed by the dead mobster's weight. Priest twisted the cap off then raised the bottle and poured it down his throat.

Priest could hear a faint rumbling come from somewhere near, he stepped closer to the railing and looked out at the waters, knowing what to expect, he was no the least bit surprised when the Yellow Submarine surfaced twenty feet away from the Bella Donna.

"Well well," muttered Priest as he raised the bottle to his lips, "Here come the cavalry."

* * *

"We knew that Sergei Yurinov worked for you." said Mona as she stood leaning against the wall, holding a gun while Vercetti sat on a chair listening, "We knew you would jump at the chance to get back at Priest. I bugged Mitch Baker's house during a party last week and listened for days will we knew all about the big jobs happening tonight. WE were the one who tipped off the cops, and organized Priest's get-together with YOUR men. Priest knew Sergei would betray him and that he'd be taken to wherever no cops would be watching. He even carried a tracking device in his hair that I used to pin-point his exact location.

"Everything that happened last week, from the first time one of your men's girls saw Priest in a strip club till right now, was planned by me to get me and you to this position; somewhere away from all your men and all your guns where we could talk."

"Who are you? Something tells me you're not a cop."

"That's right, I'm not. I'm the only person who can and will call off Priest, unless you refuse to cooperate."

"No."

"No?" said Mona with one raised eyebrow, "Mister Vercetti, we are on a boat floating miles away from the City, in which there is no one but me, you, Priest and your very dead men. Take a moment to ponder the measure of your power right now."

"I want Priest. I want him dead. Only then will I talk."

"Jesus Christ." sighed Mona, "Priest said you'd be like this."

Mona raised her gun and fired at Vercetti's chair, her bullet plunging right through the wood between his legs, within a hair of his manhood.

"JESUS CHRIST!"

"See? Do you believe that I don't like any more than Priest does? Now, let me ask you; where is..."

* * *

"... MacGuffin paid Vercetti to help him fake his death. He supplied the men who destroyed his yacht, he even paid up the police department and coast guard so they wouldn't investigate too thoroughly." said Mona as she and Nemo stood on the Yellow Submarine's conning tower as it sailed away and toward the harbor.

"The last favor Vercetti performed is have MacGuffin secretly taken to Gotham City, where he definitely came in contact with Doctor Thomas Wayne."

"Good heaven." muttered Nemo, "Thomas Wayne; that's Bruce Wayne's father."

"I know."

"The same Bruce Wayne that banned Priest from ever entering Gotham City."

"What, is that going to be a problem?"

"Yes. Bruce and I are friends, I gave him my word. Besides, his help would expedite your investigation greatly."

"So what do we do?"

"We'll set sail to Gotham, but not before dropping Priest at the Harbor as he requested. He can join us later in Gotham, where he will be restricted to the Submarine."

* * *

**One Hour Later**

_Vice City, Florida_

"It's dangerous for us to be meeting like this." said Sergei Yurinov as he carried two glasses of Vodka to the man on his couch.

"Shit, Sergei. Since when did you do anything anyway beside dangerously?" asked Priest as he took one of the glasses, "Besides, Vercetti is probably still on his boat trying to get it back into the pier. By the time he's back and asking himself what went wrong, I'll be long gone."

Sergei sat down on a recliner opposite to his bandaged Friend and said,

"You look like a mummy, you know that?"

"Yes, I'm almost too hideous for your wife. Almost. How is Katja, anyhow?"

"Upped and left me last month, she'll be back. Eventually."

"Well," said Priest as he reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope, "This is for your troubles."

"I'm not a man who refuses a good friend's gift, but I didn't do it for the money."

"I know you didn't."

"So, how badly did you mess him up?"

"Hardly. That's why I'm paying you. Sorry man, but Mona wanted the bastard in one piece."

"Ah, well if **Mona** says it, then it must be done."

"What are you talking about, you big Russian bastard?"

"Come on, she's a stone fox. Are you saying you two aren't ..?"

"No."

"No?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I find her to be scary. But that's none of your business."

Priest finished up his drink and placed the empty glass on the coffee table, and then stood up.

"I better be going, I gotta be on a Bus to Baltimore as soon as possible."

"With that gauze-helmet you have on?" asked Sergei as he got up

"Point. I'll have to travel with the luggage."

The two men embraced briefly, and with a heavy slap between the shoulder, Sergei said, "Take care of yourself, Priest. The world is a far more uninteresting place without you."

"You betcha, big guy."

Sergei and Priest walked to the door, and as they stood at the threshold, Priest asked,

"Are you going to be okay?"

"Sure. Vercetti'll be too scared to do anything after seeing what kind of creature you are. He'll grill me about it, I'll keep it cool. It'll all blow over in two days."

"Are you going to keep working for him?"

Sergei sighed.

"Look, Priest, It's too complicated. For a guy with my record, Vercetti is the only way to survive in a town like this. And as I told you, I get hungry easily,"

"Why not leave?"

"I don't know, I guess I like it too much."

* * *

**Next Chapter:** Mona's return to Gotham sees her teaming up with Billionare Bruce Wayne to investigate the latter's father's connection with MacGuffin. The Batman also divulgs his findings in his investigation of the Substance C narcotic.


	51. The Boys are Back in Town

**Four Hours Later**

_Baltimore, Maryland_

The man on the pier looked at the waters of the gulf as they reflected the sky above them that had went from being black to dark shades of blue as dawn grew near. He took off his brown leather coat and folded it neatly, placing it on the edge as he sat down with his feet dangling over the water.

Minutes Later, the wind carried the zipping sound of a rotor that grew closer. Looking across the waters he could see a tiny black dot in the horizon; a speedboat coming his way.

Minutes more still and Billy Shears arrived at the pear, pulling up to a halt by the concrete wall.

"Mister Priest?"

"About bloody time that you came," said Priest, "Catch."

Priest tossed his coat over to Shears before proceeding to scale down the concrete side of the pear and boarding the boat. Shears promptly steered the helm pulled a lever, and the speedboat started speeding away the same direction that it came.

"We'll be in Gotham bay in forty minutes, so we should beat the sunlight."

"That's good, means I don't have to bother with this helmet I'm wearing."

Priest raised his hands to his head and started peeling away the layers of gauze that were wrapped around his head.

"How bad does it look?"

Priest glanced at Priest for a moment, "I don't know how it looked before, but they look faded right now."

"That's the good ol' vampire regeneration at work." Said Priest as he started cutting out his stitches with a knife.

"Don't worry; it gives you lots of character."

"Thanks you."

"The missing teeth, however, make you look quite ridiculous."

* * *

_Gotham City, Maryland_

Mona had been asleep for less than three hours when Nemo woke her up, quite roughly, and told her that she was to head into the City at once. She objected like a child and demanded to be left alone, but Nemo would have none of it and she eventually complied, never wondering why was it that she was not allowed to wait till noon when she would be well rested.

And there she was, forty minutes later standing at the gates of Wayne manor, talking through the intercom to an elderly Englishman. There was a buzzing bound and the gate parted, she got back into the car Nemo had loaned her and drove right in. The car was a black Dodge Charger that was always kept in the Yellow Submarine's loading dock, Nemo had told her to be very careful with it, claiming that it was the among the most sophisticated machines in his arsenal. Moreover, he told her specifically not to _insult_ it.

'Men', Mona thought, even the Immortal Indian revolutionaries had a mad-on for their little cars.

Funny, Mona thought. One would think someone of Nemo's intellect would probably understand that Bruce Wayne would still be there after she had had enough sleep.

A tall man stood near the entrance of Wayne Mansion, holding both his hand together before him, dressed in a fine suit, looking as proper and lively as ever even at that ungodly hour.

"Miss Sax, how are you?" said the man after Mona had pulled over, shut the engine and got out the car, "I hope your drive here was pleasant."

"I'm fine; the drive was fine, Mister…."

"Pennyworth, miss; Alfred Pennyworth. I wouldn't presume to judge you by your choice of profession, but the least you could do Is remember the names of the ones you've held at gunpoint."

"Yeah," said Mona, slightly embarrassed, "I… I'm sorry about that. Bygones?"

"Apology accepted." Said the butler warmly, as he opened the door and held it open for Mona to enter.

"Master Bruce will be with you shortly." Said Alfred as he led her through the marble floored hall with various pieces of art adorning the walls and mantels.

"He's up already?" asked Mona, yawning loudly.

"He's up still."

"Oh, right. He does that whole avenging-creature-of-the-night thing. Tell me, do you ever see him while he'd getting dressed in that full body-condom and say **WHOA**!"

"I am a gentleman's gentleman, ma'am; so I cannot say that I daily contemplate calling the men in white coats."

"Hmm, Gotcha."

Alfred opened a door and said, "This way, ma'am. I'll return shortly, how do you take your coffee?"

"Thanks, I take it black and sweet."

Mona walked into the room which was a study and stood in the middle, looking all around, waiting for Wayne to show up. The room was as lavish as the rest of the mansion, as would be expected from Gotham's Golden Boy. There was an old piano that could pay for her to perform a number of hits, bookcases covered every wall, stacked with every book worth owning or most of them anyway, covering topics such as Anatomy, Economy, Political Science, Psychology and Criminology. There was also a fireplace, above which was a family portrait depicting an attractive couple and an eight year old boy.

Mona turned around to see one of the bookcases separated from the wall behind it; there appeared to be an openeing hidden behind it, a doorway in the wall that was normally concealed behind that particular bookcase, and that led to somewhere that obviously no one was meant to enter.

A tall, very well built, very bare-chested man stepped out from the doorway that promptly closed behind him. He was bare-footed and wore black training trouser and held a white t-shirt in his hands that he quickly slipped on.

"Miss Sax." Said Bruce Wayne, "I've been expecting you. How's Nemo?"

"Mysterious, scowly, laconic. Was he always like this?"

"He used to be worse."

"I can't imagine." Said Mona with a smile.

"Your Intel is wrong."

"I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"You've been misled, there is no way my father could have been involved in any spy-related business."

"Oh, I disagree. I _personally_ gathered that intelligence."

"Whatever you say, miss." Said Wayne as he put on a black robe that was on the piano seat, "I'm only playing along out of respect for Nemo. I have all of my father's papers and journals in storage, we'll go through them as long as we have to. Once we've concluded that you are wrong, we will go see Nemo, at which time I'm going to discuss matters of interest to him. Follow me."

Wayne headed out of the study. Mona stood in place for a moment and rolled her eyes as she followed him, muttering to herself, "This is going to be all loads of fun."

* * *

"Did it hurt?" asked Priest as he brushed the two puncture marks on the porcelain white skin with his fingers, "I was born like this, so I never did have it done to me. Did it?"

"Yes, it did hurt." Said Josephine, "It was the most glorious thing that ever happened to me."

"Well, I'm… Never mind."

"What was it that you wanted to say? Please tell me."

"I was going to apologize. On behalf of the count, that is."

"That's ridiculous."

"I know, that's why I didn't. Look, can I ask you a question?"

"Will you allow me to ask you another in return?"

"Sure."

"You may ask me, then."

"Why are you here?" asked Priest, "_Are_ you here?"

"I'm here because you want it, silly. You must admit, we share a thread."

"Un-bloody-likely."

"What is it?"

"That's your question? What's what?"

Josephine inches closer, her lips an inch away from Priest's ear. And with her eyes glimmering a fiery red she asked, "What is that that you're so afraid of?"

* * *

"Priest."

"Gah." Said Priest as he woke up, "What? How?"

Nemo looked down on Priest as he lay on a sofa in the Yellow Submarine's clear-walled room, where the hull was made out of half a foot thick bullet-proof glass, allowing those in it to view whatever sea environment the submarine was currently in.

"Are you alright?" asked Nemo, "It's me..… Nemo."

"I know you're Nemo. What's up?"

"I just wanted to check on you. Your sleep appeared to be troubled. Were you dreaming? Do vampires even dream?"

"Sure, we have dreams. Mostly wet."

"Please, tell me _none_ of it." Said Nemo nervously.

"Nemo, I had a dream about Josephine. Dry, though."

Nemo sighed.

"And?"

"Who is she, Nemo?"

"She was a member of the first generation of the League, along with me. We worked together for five years, until the Year of the Martian Invasion."

"So you used to be friends?"

"Not really. By the time I had started to grow fond of her, I discovered she was committing adultery with another member of our team, when she was married to a fourth member, who was a good friend of mine. Why the sudden curiosity?"

"Nothing, it just kinda weirded me out."

"When's Mona going to be back?"

"She and Bruce had to go through quit a sum of Bruce's late father's papers if we are to discover the nature of the relationship between Doctor Wayne and MacGuffin."

Nemo turned to leave, saying as he headed for the door, "Dinner is in twenty minutes, you may join me if you like."

"Hey, Nemo." Called Priest. Nemo stopped dead in his track and looked back, asking, "What is it?"

"Josephine is a vampire, right?"

"Correct. Didn't I mention it? I thought I did."

"Draculla's breed? She's the only one of her kind."

"Yes, how did you..?"

"That night I saw her I noticed she had a certain…. **it**. I'm not of Draculla's breed, not even close. But I can sense these things." Said Priest as he hung his head, "I'd love to join you, Nemo. Don't start without me."

Priest lay back on the sofa. Nemo simply shrugged and walked out.

* * *

"You don't entertain much, do you?" asked Mona as she and Wayne sat at opposite ends of a twenty foot long dining table.

"Sorry?" asked Wayne as he looked up from his plate.

"Nothing." Said Mona as she picked at her food, "The linguini is excellent, by the way."

"I'm leaving for a few hours." Said Wayne as he set down his fork and stood up, "I have a board meeting that I can't miss."

"Sure. I'll look through the papers all by myself."

"No, you won't. I want you to wait for me."

"Why?"

"Please." Said Wayne, "It wont take long. Meanwhile, you can make yourself at home. Ask Alfred if you want anything."

"But…"

Suddenly, Wayne wasn't there. The billionaire vigilante had vanished leaving Mona alone at one end of the dining table.

"Men."

* * *

The story approaches it's conclusion as the hunt for Gideon MacGuffin is on the fast track.

**NEXT CHAPTER: **Tensions grow between Mona Sax and Bruce Wayne, Judas Priest broods some more and the connection between MacGuffin and Dr. Wayne is revelaed.

I should point something out. Two chapters ago when I made a comment about revealing MacKenzie true identity, I had a specific idea at the time that I have since came to reconsider. I've recently been watching a fantastic anime series that I won't tell you what It is at this point, and one character could be great as MacKenzie's alter-ego. I won't know till I'm done with it. Anyway, my original idea is pretty good and will be worth the wait, I promise.

Also, starting with the chapter after next we will be checking up on the various other characters that I have sadly neglected, including Bond, The Sanits, Barbossa, Josephine and others. The story will conclude by chapter 60 or so. After that I might be writing a new story about Orlando, which I plan to make sort of a Forrest Gump like, light-hearted story detailing Orlando's adventures in the 20th century and will include a plethora of famouse characters.

Note: Nemo's car is... Nah, you can guess it on your own.


	52. Exposition

**Now**

_Gotham City, Maryland_

Gotham Harbor

First Mate Pepper tried not to look at Priest as he devoured a bloody raw piece of Shark meat, as the two of them and Nemo ate their lunch in the Yellow Submarine's dinning room. Pepper couldn't help but notice the similarities and discrepancies between the two, both were Immortal, seasoned men of the world, though at the moment they looked to be on the opposite sides of the spectrum, with Priest eating like an animal, as the ship's Captain ate with dignity and grace. The topic of the two's discussion was, however, far from savage talk.

"Does it matter?" asked Priest as he sipped from a pitcher of vodka, "Whoever ends up on Pennsylvania, we'll still be fucked."

"Though perhaps not entirely devoid of truth, that's an overly defeatist attitude."

"I've been an American for a long time. Nemo. I arrived here with the rest of the Titanic survivors in 1912. Being a creature of the night, registering with the authorities at Ellis Island seemed pointless at the time, and so I lived for thirty years as an illegal immigrant, moving between Boston, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles every five years.

"Come the forties I started working for Uncle Sam, but didn't get recognized as citizen. They couldn't admit I existed, could they? They expunged any proof that I ever was and so Judas Priest never existed. So for the next years I was taken care of, I was well paid, had a nice expense account and should I ever got into a fight in some bar or something I would simply give the DRI a call and cops'd be apologizing to me minutes later, but I couldn't vote. One year, I got it into my mind that I liked Jack Kennedy well enough, so I paid an apathetic frat boy from Berkley to vote on my behalf.

"And then they killed him. And let me tell you Nemo, the stink of that business traveled high. From what I saw, they couldn't be bothered to even pretend like they were actually trying to find out who it was. I was refused a request to investigate the matter, or offer any assistance at all."

"Your point?"

"You can't trust people. Those in the gutter always let the bastards climb to the stars."

"You still hadn't answered my question; who has the better chance of winning the upcoming presidential elections?

"McNeil."

"What makes you certain?"

"After the past eight years, Satan could win if he ran as a democrat. Besides, she's in bed with the League, isn't she? The night I photographed Josephine she was talking to her and looking particularly chummy."

"Yes, that's true. The League has been increasingly acting as kingmakers for the past decades. I wonder if there remains any actual democracy anyway."

"Who knows? I'm a believer in socialism myself."

"You're joking?"

"No, I'm not." Said Priest as he took another sip of Vodka.

"Is that why you deserted in Vietnam? You felt sympathy for the enemy combatants?"

"I wasn't a socialist then." Said Priest grimly as he cut another a piece of shark, "My desertion was for other purposes."

"Which are?"

"Avoiding court marshal, for one thing."

"You were going to be court marshaled?" asked Nemo, his surprise very evident in his tone and his expression.

"What is it, Nemo? Did you think I was the model soldier?" asked Priest with a smile, "It's like I told you."

"Your service record said nothing of court marshal."

"I wouldn't expect them to. If they failed to trial me, then registering my actions and their cause would only lead to their embarrassment."

"What do you mean?"

"Suffice to say that I did something …. Terrible to members of my platoon." Said Priest as he placed his bloody knife and fork on the table, then wiped his mouth with a napkin, "I did it for a reason, and excuse me if I don't say what it was."

"That's your prerogative," said Nemo, "All of us who oppose the League have done questionable things. I would simply prefer if you wouldn't hint at your actions and not divulge them."

"Fair enough." said Priest as he stood up, "Do you still have my service records?"

"Yes, why?"

"Nostalgia. I could also do with a little light reading."

"I'll have then sent to your quarters."

"Thanks. Nemo, may I ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

"What'll you do when it's all over."

"When _what_ is over."

"All of it. If you ever do go to war Against the League, if you win. What will you do then?"

Nemo was silent, so Priest simply shrugged as he walked out of the room, saying, "You can tell me later. Don't forget my records."

* * *

**Hours Later**

_Gotham City, Maryland_

Gotham Heights

"Well well," said Mona as she sat on the stars leading to Wayne Mansion and the master of the house pulled up nearby in his Bentley, "The Dark Knight Returns."

"Miss Sax," said Wayne as he walked up the stairs with his briefcase in hand, "I'm sorry I had to keep you waiting. Corporate matters arose and had to be dealt with."

"What? There was no valet parking in the country club?" asked Mona as she got up and followed Wayne to the entrance, "Can we please continue now? We've wasted enough time." Said Mona as she followed Wayne into the mansion where Alfred relieved him of his coat and his briefcase.

"That's the whole thing, isn't it?" asked Wayne as the pair of them walked into one of the storage rooms, it was relatively ample and filled with dusty boxes filled with medical reports and files that once belonged to Wayne's father.

"I get it; you don't like the fact that your father was connected to an international clandestine organization that fucks human-kind annually. That doesn't change the fact that we have a job to do and you being in denial isn't helping."

"Well, we're one third of the way done. We will find out soon enough."

"Fine."

"And by the way, I was late because I had to convince the board of director not to downsize two thousand employees."

"Whatever." Said Mona, rolling her eyes.

"Some of us have a responsibility to others…."

"Yeah yeah."

"…Not that I'd expect someone like you to understand." Continued Wayne under his breath.

"What did you say?"

Wayne ignored her, walking into the room filled with all his father's papers.

"Someone like me? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't act like you've done nothing wrong. I know what kind of person you are."

"Oh, really?" asked Mona, her eyes widening with anger, "Tell me, rich boy, what kind of person AM I?"

"You think I didn't run a background check on you? I know the things you've done, the people you've killed, the lives you've ruined. You're almost as bad as your partner Judas Priest.

"You were here in Gotham back in 2002; you shot a witness just as he got out of squad car, on his way into the court house to testify in a corruption scandal involving the mayor. You shot him from two blocks' distance and allowed the mob and self-serving politicians to keep driving this city into the mouth of hell."

"Screw you, Wayne! You don't have the right!" barked Mona, "You think you get to sit on your high horse and pass judgment on me like some of those freaks you like to beat up? Bullshit. You have no idea how I wound up like this, you have no idea what it's like when you're in the gutter."

"You're dead wrong, Miss Sax. I've suffered loss and I've been to the depths, I've been with the thieves and I at times had to steal to keep from starving. But there's no excuse for the things you have done."

"Sunshine, you don't have a clue. So your mom and dad got shot when you were a kid? My mom got shot when I was a kid too. Me and my sister had to move in with our deadbeat dad who's sometimes drop us off at his sister's and her husband the sex offender while he went and tried to scam people for nickels and dimes. You have no idea what it's like to have to grab a gun and shoot two strangers you've never met so that the mob would forget about the money your dead dad owed them. So please, shut the fuck up."

* * *

**Seven Hours Later**

"Mona, my lovely." Said Priest with his arms extended as if for a hug as Mona stepped out of Nemo's car, having just driven in, "I have missed you soooooo much. We had shark for lunch. Shark! For crying out loud."

"Get away from me."

"What? Did Vercetti give us a fugesi?"

"No, we pretty much found what we were looking for. Where's Nemo?"

"Conning tower. What'd you find out?"

"It's better if I tell you both at the same time."

Two minutes later, the three were all gathered on the conning tower.

"All right, where here." Said Nemo, "Report."

"This is Doctor Thomas Wayne's notes from October 1988." Said Mona as she handed Nemo a brown folder, "MacGuffin did meet him. Apparently MacGuffin knew Wayne from the Oxford alumni club. Wayne owed him a favor and MacGuffin came to collect."

"What kind of favor?" asked Priest.

"Plastic Surgery. As in an entirely new face."

"And this is after he was supposedly killed?"

"Yes. Once he recovered, he left the country using an assumed name of Oliver Warren. Dr. Wayne wrote that MacGuffin said that he was headed for Morocco."

"Morocco, huh?" asked Priest with a smile, "I haven't been to Morocco since the sixties. Those were some wild times."

"You're unlikely to return soon. Not on my account that is." Said Nemo as he flipped through the folder, "Apparently MacGuffin had left a bank account number in the Cayman Islands. That'll be all we need to go from here."

"How so?"

"Did you think the intelligence wing does nothing but back you up?"

"Right. So when do we get our next destination?"

"Could be a few days." Said Nemo, "Did Bruce say anything else?"

"He said he'd be here… but…"

"I'm already here, Miss Sax."

Mona and Nemo spun around to look behind and above them, to see a crouching figure covered in black.

"Jesus." Exclaimed Mona.

"Hell," muttered Priest, "I've heard about it and read about it in the papers, but you really have to see it to believe it."

"Nemo, I thought we had an understanding." Said the Batman as he stared at Priest, speaking with a deep, almost growl like voice.

"Regarding me?" asked Priest, "I believe you said I wasn't allowed to set foot in Gotham, which I haven't. So there."

"Fair enough. What the hell happened to you?"

"I cut myself shaving."

"That's enough." Said Nemo, "Bruce, what is the meaning of this?"

"Someone seeing me here in my civilian identity would be very damaging. I would also prefer if you didn't use my name."

"Fine. What is that you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Substance C." said the Batman, "I think I may have found what you were looking for."

He reached into his cape and pulled something out of a pocket, then tossed over at Nemo's feet. It was another folder filed with photographs and hand written notes.

"As you know, Project Valhalla was initiated by the Ministry of Defense in 1991; it invented Valkyr as a drug to improve morale and stamina for U.S. soldiers in 1991. Valkyr produced the desired effect, but as side-effect caused severe psychosis to 98 of test subject. When it became apparent that the defects couldn't be ironed out without obliterating the desired effect, Project Valhalla was halted in 1995.

"Nicole Horne, Miss Sax's former employer and formerly the head of Project Valhalla, developed Valkyr and continued its production after the government cut the funding, developing its fortune into the Aesir Corporation, using it to wield tight control over much of New York."

"Now tell us something we don't know."

"I did some digging into Horne's past, and came up with the conclusion that she worked with a Felix Leiter in the CIA. Felix Leiter runs the New York branch of the League, it seems reasonable to assume that Horne either was a high ranking Leaguer, or that she had close ties to them."

"This is excellent work." Muttered Nemo as he tried to read the reports despite lack of sufficient lighting.

"It gets better." Said the Batman, "Horne may have had financial and tactical help from Leiter in setting up Aesir Corporations, but she had some other parties as well."

"Who?"

"Look at the third picture."

Nemo sought the picture in question and looked at it, before frowning as he passed it to Priest while the Batman continued.

"Following Horne's death and the release of evidence of the whole affair. Aesir Corporation's files were acquired by an unknown party represented by that woman. That same woman had been frequently seen during the early days of Aesir, some claim she oversaw the first production operations and may have shaped Valkyr into that form."

"Josephine." Growled Priest as he squeezed the picture in his hand, which depicted Josephine and Nicole Horne talking together by a limousine outside some building.

"Gentlemen, we can only draw the conclusion that Josephine have covertly picked up where Horne left off, as I have ran tests on both Valkyr and Substance C, carrying them out with the utmost scrutiny and came to the conclusion that they are both composed of the same base components, though with concentrations varying for a more severe effect."

"It all makes sense." Said Nemo.

"It does?" Priest asked with one eyebrow raised.

"Yes. Josephine was originally a chemist; she must be running the Substance C manufactory in Gotham."

"So what do we do next?" asked the Batman.

"Substance C hasn't been distributed in Gotham yet, and I suspect the League are putting it off because of you." Said Nemo, "Just keep an eye out for Josephine. And take care, old friend. I understand if you feel that your duties are being neglected and wish to head back into the city."

"Actually, I was wondering if could have a word with Miss Sax. Alone."

"What the heck?!"

Nemo grabbed Priest by the arm and led him to the hatch, "Of course. We will be submerging in fifteen minutes, though. Be sure you're either back at the harbor or behind the hatch door by then."

Nemo and Priest soon disappeared behind the hatch door, leaving Batman and Mona alone on the conning tower. Mona was as surprised as Priest was at the Batman's request, due to their row earlier and the stone cold silence that occupied that room for seven hours till Wayne found the journal in question, much to both his surprise and his dismay. She regretted not gloating at the fact back then and wondered what he was about to say.

"Miss Sax.. I am…"

"You can drop the scary voice. I'm not someone you're trying to scare the daylights out of."

"I'm … I'm sorry." Said Wayne, adopting his normal voice, "You were right, I didn't have the right to say the things I've said, I didn't mean them."

"Yeah you did. You meant every word of it." Said Mona, "Hell, you were right."

"Still, you were trying to help Nemo, and I was only bent on condemning you."

"Well… Apology accepted."

"Well then-"

"You know for what it's worth, it wasn't me."

"Sorry?"

"I was only in Gotham once, and that was a few months ago. I don't know who was it that killed that witness you're talking about, but it wasn't me."

"Well, again, I apologize."

"Look, Wayne." Said Mona as she hung her head, "I mean Batman. Being involved with MacGuffin wasn't really a bad thing. It seemed that your father was simply trying to get a friend out of jam. Seems your father was a believer in second chances."

"He was." Said Wayne, "I am too. I suppose if Nemo trusts you enough, it must be for a good reason."

"Yeah, well…."

"Judas Priest on the other hand I'm not so sure about."

"Totally. Guy's insane, man." Said Mona with a chuckle as she looked at her feet, then looked up to see that Batman had disappeared.

* * *

"So, do you miss your bat-boyfriend already?" asked Priest as he sat on the ground in the bridge, his back against the wall, "Am I invited to the wedding? Do I get to be your maid of honor? I already have the dress, you see."

"Priest, I will shoot you if you don't cut it out." Said Mona as she sat in a chair, her hand suggestively caressing her gun.

"Man, your kids are gonna fucking violent." Said Priest as Nemo walked in, "So what's the plan, boss?"

"I've sent scans of these reports to the intelligence wing in London," said Nemo as he dropped the folders on a steel table, "They will investigate on these findings and reports back to me, at which time I will contact you both. It may take a few days or weeks even."

"So what do we do until then?" asked Priest.

"You may have a brief vacation. Go to Morocco, if you desire it."

"I could do that," said Priest as he contently smiled and looked into space, "I wonder if Rick's Café is still open."

"Are you sure about this, Nemo?" asked Mona.

"Of course, you two've been working non-stop for the past few weeks, you've earned it."

* * *

**Next Chapter:** While Mona and Priest have a well deserved breather, we will have a look at some of the forgotten characters of this story, be they villains of champions. Next chapter will see the return of Mina Harker aka Josephine. As she has a session with her psychiatrist; a man of peculiar 'tastes', and reveal some interesting things. 


	53. Forever Jung

**Now**

_Gotham City, Maryland_

Mina Jekyll, known to her underlings as 'Josephine' lay on a leather couch, looking up at the ceiling, counting the thousands of engravings in the wooden tiles. At the same time, an elderly, clean shaven man with sleeked back gray hair sat in an armchair nearby, his legs crossed, with a notebook on his upper thigh and a pen in his only hand.

"Well, Josephine," said the psychiatrist in a calm and collected voice, speaking with an English accent, "You've been laying there for five minutes counting those engravings, which number about 12,536. You can take as long as you want, I will not be impatient and I do not have anyone I'm more willing to counsel. But unless you start telling me what's worrying you at one point or another, you being here will be pointless."

Mina didn't respond, as if she heard nothing, she simply kept looking up at the ceiling for another minute before saying.

"I've been having a recurring dream, Doctor Lecter."

"A nightmare?"

"Not really." Said Mina as she closed her eyes, conjuring her recollections, "I'm usually in a forest, and once on a sandy beach. I fight a giant scorpion drenched in blood. Only, in the dream I feel reluctant. I don't want to talk about it, and I don't want you to interpret it."

"That's your choice, Josephine. Now tell me what's really bothering you."

"It's nothing I haven't gone through before, it's just…. I've been having trouble sleeping lately."

"I see." Said Lecter as he scribbled a few words in his notepad, "Has there been any change in your daily routine?"

"I've been working longer hours recently."

"Can you divulge on that?"

"Project **P**hoenix is fast approaching phase three." Said Mina, smiling grimly, "We're all in for an odd year, Doctor."

"How does that make you feel?"

"Eager anticipation, I guess. Everything's been going according to plan. I feel a measure of pride. However, I feel that perhaps it's all going too fast."

"Is something going against you will? Do you feel that something is being done wrong?"

"I can't divulge that, Doctor."

"Alright, we'll get back to that later. How about your diet?"

"Stale. I barely go out to eat anymore. I mostly stay in and dine on raw meet."

"Has fresh blood been loosing its appeal?"

"Not at all. It's just that the spirit has left the hunt. In the old days, I'd be going again armies; trained and armed killers aware that the bottom line was that it was I or them that would live. I'd be meeting insurmountable odds, I'd be fighting for my life and when it came to a conclusion I would be victorious, and that sweet, rich taste would wake my every sense.

"Attacking some lonely tart on her way home from her two jobs, or a vagabond who has had not sustenance but cheap alcohol is just not worth the effort."

"Do you miss working in the field, Josephine?"

"Of course I do. Everyone does." Said Mina, "Bond more than most."

"Bond is only human, Josephine. For someone such as you, however, being confined to under the board politics and manipulating the powerful must seem most terribly dull."

"I suppose. I'm a predator by nature. But still, I'm where I am by choice. Somewhere along the line, the thrill of the fight died."

"Do you remember when was that, Josephine?"

"Oh, yes. I remember."

* * *

**1933**

_New York City_

Orlando, a black haired young man – young in a strictly physical sense -, sat next to Mina on a bench in Grand Central Station, smoking a cigarette.

"I can't believe they've outlawed spirits in this country. Hoe can they expect to do everything sober?"

"Give it a rest, Lord Orlando." Said Mina, "I doubt the American secret service will imprison you if you get caught with a glass of sherry."

"Remind me again, what are we doing here?"

"Tom Sawyer had reported our activities to his superiors over the years. The secret service want our help in creating their own League. M bartered an agreement for us to help in exchange for increased intelligence cooperation."

"Right. Who are we supposed to meet here, again?"

"A government Agent designated No. 5. His name is Jim Christopher. The three of us will be meeting Captain Joseph Sullivan, formerly of the RAF, who will be providing Aerial transport. The remaining members of the team are Lamont Cranston, Doctor Clark Savage Jr. and a Prof. Henry Jones Jr."

"Are they League material?"

"Certainly so. Any more question, Lord Orlando?"

"Just one." Said Orlando as he tossed his cigarette aside, "What are we doing, Mina?"

"What? What do you mean?"

"This. All of it. Scurrying around the world, fighting every mad man with a self-serving Agenda. Don't you ever get sick of it?"

"Our work is crucial and important and can't be done by any Tom, Dick and Harry. We can't afford to get sick of it."

"Even so. We might be immortals, but we can't be expected to go on like this for all eternity."

"Not for all eternity. Just till there are no more of the perils we face."

"Oh, Mina. How can you be naïve? There'll always be perils."

* * *

**Now**

"That's when I realized, there was no point in fighting as long as more adversaries were on the way. I do miss the field, Doctor. It's just that the field out there is nothing like the field my heart longs to fight in. Next question."

Lecter was silent for a moment, as though pausing to collect his thoughts before he asked, "How's your love life? You're still in a relationship with your personal assistant, Mandy Hughes, aren't you?"

Mina slowly turned her head to the left to look at Lecter for a second. The Doctor was not intimidated by her stair so she looked away.

"Yes."

"How long has it been?"

"I'm not sure, a year and change, I think."

"How are your living arrangements?"

"She spends three or four nights in my suite. I spend the night at her place once a week, at most, when we're heading back home at the end of the night and we're closer to her place and she doesn't feel like making the trip."

"Have neither of you brought the issue of moving in together?"

"No. We both need our space."

"And how does this relationship affect in your working environment."

"I sometimes hear people make jokes about it, and then I catch one of them by the head and batter him many times into a wall. Now can we please drop THAT subject?"

"How's your intimacy level?"

"How's my… Hehehehehehehh… Hannibal, you are relentless. James Bond himself doesn't have the balls to ask me that.

"It's gone stale. There was a time when I was insatiable, now I'm just going through the motions."

"Hmmmm."

"'Hmmmm.', eh? I hate that sound, my second husband used to make it all the time; Clever old Henry."

Lecter started scribbling on his notepad.

"I don't need drugs for my libido. I can make my own drugs, you know."

"Yes. So, we've established that you've been having trouble sleeping and have a diminished sexual drive. It sounds to me that you're depressed."

"If you say so."

"When did it all start, Josephine?"

"I don't know…. Three months, maybe? Give or take."

"Three months." Said Lecter, as if finally some vague matter had become clear, "And what happened three months ago?"

"Opposition operatives got within close contact with me." Said Mina with a sight as she closed her eyes, "Discovered my identity. You can see why that troubles me. Nobody knows who I really am. Not you, not Mandy. Just the Director, the other six Branch Leaders. And now, the opposition. I feel violated. I feel like the power I held has been stripped away by Nemo and his terrorist ilk. If only they could see what we could see, if only they'd knew what we had in store for the world, and how we're going to save it in ways they'd never dare dream of.

"I'll have my vengeance soon, though. They may not know it, but we've infiltrated the opposition's ranks, we almost know who everyone of them is and where they all are. Any day now, the order will be passed and our hammer will fall upon them with righteous judgment."

* * *

So, what do you think? Did Mina sound or feel to flakey? I think I might've botched it. R&R.

**Next Chapter: **The return of Hector Barbossa and George Costas. We learn a thing or two about the fountain of youth, Barbossa's sex life and why one must never loose sight of the monkey.


	54. A Pirate's Life

**Now**

_The Bermuda Triangle_

"The monkey's gone, eh?" said George Costas, his voice without a single ounce of interest as he stood behind the bar.

"Hell yes, the monkey's gone! What the hell am I going to do?" asked a distraught sailor as he stood in front of the bar in the submarine's tavern at five in the morning.

"I dunno; find 'em?"

"How the hell am I supposed to do that?!"

"I don't know. I don't care. This is the Black Pearl, friend. Everyone has his own responsibility here, mine is shooting people and serving the drinks and yours is keeping a watchful eye on that monkey when the Captain and Miss Diver are…. You know, still in their boudoir."

"I wasn't hired as a zookeeper! I'm supposed to be a gunner, for god's sake!"

"Right. Were you not the gunner who missed hitting a ship carrying black market weapons, which is how we ended up having to pay for our weapons? And wasn't that how you were relegated to being a caretaker for an undead monkey?"

"Alright, alright. I'll try and find Jack, but listen George, if I can't do it you have to calm Barbossa so that I can have a head-start, he likes you the most."

"He likes me the most because I never misplaced the monkey. **Never.**" Said Costas sternly, "Now GO! No one ever found a monkey by standing in a bar and talking to me."

* * *

The woman was tall and voluptuous, her skin was fair and unblemished, hair was dark and unruly and her eyes were a brilliant green.

"My," said the woman with a smile as she stretched in bed beneath the sheets and raised her hand up and wiggled her fingers in the sunlight coming from a window, "It feels like thirteen years ago was only last week."

Barbossa reached to wrap his own rough fingers around hers, while with the other hand he stroked her hair.

"Aye it does."

"Tell me, Hector. Would you still love me if I didn't always follow you into that fountain?"

"Don't be silly, Jenny." Said Barbossa with a smile, "Of course not."

"Oh, you smelly old brute!" said Jenny as she elbowed Barbossa in the ribs.

"Ow! Easy, darling. I may be Immortal but that doesn't mean I'm impervious to harm from your boney yet lovely elbows. And you know I was taking the piss."

"Of course I do. If I thought you were serious you wouldn't be able to complain about it. When do we leave for the fountain?"

"We're almost here." Said Barbossa, "We leave in an hour."

"An hour, eh? That's a long time."

"Aye," said Barbossa with a smirk, "What might we do to pass the time?"

* * *

**Eight Hours Earlier**

_Brooklyn, New York City_

"Were you scarred? It's almost gone," said John Harding, "But it looks like someone carved you up bad."

"Yep." Said Priest as he counted the money stacked on Harding's coffee table.

"Did it hurt?"

"It wasn't as enjoyable as feeling the wind in your hair, I'll tell you that."

Priest then dropped the final stack of fifty dollar bills on the table, and then looked at it all, devouring it with his eyes until he had had his fill.

"Six-point-two-five million dollars, Wes."

"Yeah, the end result of three decades of pulling down scores and raising hell. And they say crime don't pay."

"Whoever said that must've been a lazy crook." Said Priest with a smile as he took a drag from the cigarette in his mouth, "Beer."

Harding handed Priest an open bottle which the latter promptly took a drag from then started stuffing the money into a gym bag.

"What are you going to do with it?" asked Harding, as his eyes told a personal goodbye to every stack that was once indefinitely left in his care.

"Spend it."

"On what?"

"The usual; vodka, loose women, vodka mostly."

"Are you going to move?"

"Thinking about it."

"Where to?"

"Beirut."

"You're moving to Oklahoma?"

"Lebanon, Wes."

"You're…kidding, right?"

"Nope, and I haven't decided yet. I'm thinking about Sarajevo, Venice, maybe London."

"Why don't you just move down to Florida like normal old people?"

"You're a funny man, Wes. I hope your sense of humor keeps you warm when you're no longer enjoying the fruits of my criminal labor and are wrecking your brains thinking what kind of job can you get."

"Motherfucker." cursed Harding.

"I'm not sure how well that pays, but good luck, Wes."

* * *

**Now**

_Isle de Aqua de Vida, Bermuda Triangle_

"This part never gets any fun." Said Jenny as she and Barbossa made their way through the unbelievably thick bushes that were taller than either of them and as thus obscured their vision.

"You should've seen it when we first found it, there were dragons here." Said Barbossa.

"Dragons?!"

"What, didn't I tell you about the dragons before? There were dragons here, well, just two. Small ones. And there were a dozen griffins."

"What happened to them?" asked Jenny as she tried not to trip and fall down as she followed Barbossa.

"Well, we killed them."

"You killed them? That's horrible!"

"They were griffins, deary, they weren't koalas." Said Barbossa, "Ah, we're here."

Barbossa and Jenny finally got out of the bush, finding themselves in a clearing, in the middle of which was an ample fountain, with a massive and noticeably old tree overlooking it.

"Ye gods," said Barbossa as he looked at the sight that lay before him in all its grandeur, "This never gets old."

Jenny went to the tree trunk to lay the picnic basket she had brought along when she noticed something wrapped in a rag.

"What's that?" asked Barbossa as he saw Jenny unwrap it.

"It's a bottle of fifty year old Dom Pérignon!" said Jenny with glee, "There's a card here, it says, _'To Jenny, for putting up with Hector all these years. How do you do it? Love, Jack Sparrow.' _He must have left it the last time he was here."

"Sparrow." growled Barbossa with contempt, "What, does he think we can't get our own wine?"

"What we brought along was a ten year old bottle of Port, loverman; Hardly any comparison."

"If I recall correctly, it was you that picked it."

"Fair enough." Said Jenny as she took off her jacket and started to undress, "Now can we please have our dip and then enjoy the fact that we have a connoisseur of a friend?"

"Connoisseur my Cornish arse!" said Barbossa as he sat on a boulder to take off his boots, "Back when we were both mortals, It was only rum for him. Aye, rum for breakfast, rum for lunch and what's that for dinner? Oh right, RUM!"

"Hector, for god's sake!"

"What?"

"Do I really have to spell it out?" said Jenny as she placed her hands on her hips and glared at Barbossa. Barbossa looked at her for a moment, then shifted his sight toward her pile of discarded clothes that lay ten feet away and made the connection.

"Oh, right."

* * *

**1777**

_Havana, Cuba_

"SPARROWW!"

"Hector! I was just telling the girls about you." Said Jack Sparrow as he sat in the back of a tavern, each of his arms wrapped around the shoulders of two young women.

Barbossa pulled his rapier out of its sheath, as the two pirates that flanked him; one was stout and bald, while the other was lanky and wore an eye patch.

"The charts, Jack. Where be they?" barked Barbossa.

"Make yourselves scarce, Chiquitas."

As the four women left in haste, Barbossa brought the blade closer to Sparrow's throat.

"My patience is thinning, Jack."

"Hector, come off it." Said Sparrow with a sly grin, "Kill me, and you'll roam the seas for a few years more and die, as common as any other pirates. Sure, you'll have the Pearl and the reputation of being the one who has killed the world's greatest pirate, but that'll get you only so far.

"Now, you know I'll never give you those charts out of the goodness of my heart. True, we've just fought side by side so that pirates can still make a dishonest living. However, I'm not going to forget that you left my to die on that island, not to mention the fact the you stole my ship while I was trying to hire us all some salty wenches."

"So what will it take for you to fork them over, then?" asked Barbossa as he slammed his fist on the table, knocking over an empty bottle.

"If that were still full, then that would've been the end of these negotiations. Do you really need to ask what it is that I want?"

"If you're talking about the Pearl, then you can forget it!"

"Ah. We both want the Pearl and we both want to live forever. And to do the latter, we need the first. It is a conundrum, no doubt. Tell me, Hector, what do you know about the fountain of youth?"

"I know I have no qualms killing you to get to it, even if it means tearing this city looking for those charts." said Barbossa.

"Fat good'll it do you, the aren't anywhere near here. Not about the fountain, as it turns out it is not to be used once. One must immerse one's self in its mystical waters once every thirteen years or so, otherwise you'll end up where you started. And just like the World's End, mate, you can't just learn how to find it; you need the charts for every visit. Lucky for us, I've come up with a settlement."

"What settlement is that?"

"First put that sword away. You too Mister Ragettie and Mister Pintel."

Barbossa reluctantly complied, as did his two men.

"State your terms, Jack."

"Shared custody."

"What in the devil's teeth are you talking about?"

"I get the Pearl, sail to Tortuga and pick up my own men, since I'm less than eager to sail the high seas with your lot, no offence. Before I leave I will tell you where to find the charts, by the time I'm back you will have acquired them and we'll all sail to the Island where we will become Immortals. Well, for the next thirteen years or so.

"I get to keep the ship till our next dip, while you keep the charts. Next time, you get to keep the Pearl and I keep the charts."

"And do you expect me to believe you'd give up the Pearl that easily?"

"There's nothing easy about it." Said Sparrow, "But I've been pondering all these months while I was waiting for you to find me, mostly I've been pondering us, and I've come to realize something."

"What is it?"

"Life was boring when you were dead, mate. This is the only way I can ensure that life stays very long and very interesting for the both of us."

* * *

Hope you liked it, I'm not satisfied with the ending, I wanted to do one more scene with Barbossa and Jenny but couldn't come up with anything for them to do. So, liked the Jenny character? Want to see her again? R&R.

**Next Chapter:** Oooh, writers block. I want to do two more chapters that are just about slowing down and having a look at the background of the story before Priest, Mona and Nemo return. Probably the Cairo Cell and James Bond. Maybe I'll pick up here.

PS. Out of curiosity, were any of you familiar with Mona from before?


	55. Spooks

**Now**

_London, England_

"Hey, cheese heads, listen up." Said Sands as he addressed a room full of people he'd been working with for a couple of years, now, though he'd never seen any of them. The scattered voices died down as the fifteen odd people turned their attention to their blind superior.

"Gump, Hunting; are you here?"

"Yeah, chief." Said Will Hunting, the American code-breaker as Forrest Gump Jr., his friend and compatriot sat next to him.

"Good." Said Sands.

"People, you've al been working for me for at least a year. You've all been doing a great job and I wouldn't rather be running this outfit with anyone else. But all that'll mean shit if you crap out on me now as I break to you what you have to do. The time has come; the moment of truth is here. You now have the most important job you're ever likely to undertake.

"We've just received a number of an account in the Cayman Islands; we only know it was used in the later eighties, possibly by someone using the alias of Oliver Warren. I want to you to milk this number for all its worth and then some; I want you to hack into Grand Cayman's mainframe, hack the CIA, hack everyone. Then I need you to track down transactions. I want to know when it was last used and where. Hell, I want to know the color of the tie of whatever bank clerk last had anything to do with that account. Cross reference everything with the name MacGuffin and send everything back to me. Let's go to work, boys and girls."

* * *

"I saw you, you know?" said Cate Archer-Bond as she sipped from her cup of tea, "Back in December, in James' knighting ceremony."

"Of course you did." Said Jack Mason with a smile.

Both James Bond's wife and one of James Bond's enemies were in the Russian tea room which was mostly vacant.

" 'Of course you did.'" Scoffed Cate, "You sound just like him. You look just like him too."

"Heh. British Intelligence's idea." Said Mason as he sipped his own tea, "They thought it wise to have two identically appearing Agents, namely because the Soviets were doing the same. God knows why it had to be me that got a new face. I was the prettier one. Right?"

"Oh look, a little bird." Said Cate as she jokingly looked out a window.

"Glad to see years of retirement haven't done away with your sense of humor."

"It has, as it did with everything else I had. Seeing today is like a refreshing tunic."

"That's the nicest thing anybody's said to me lately. So, what are you doing to keep yourself occupied these days?"

"This and that." Said Cate as she poured another cup of tea, "Emphasis on this; drinking tea with people I'm not particularly fond of."

"I'm hurt."

"Oh, sorry. When I said this I meant the tea, I wasn't imp-"

"I know, don't worry."

"I show up on James' arm when he needs me, I do a bit of charity work. I do a bit of P.R. between the League and the Government."

"So, you're not entirely retired."

"You know what they tell you at the start of training; once in the firm…"

"Quite."

"And you?"

"Working diligently. You can say that to James."

"Ha! If he knew I was sitting here with one of the four men bent on destroying everything he'd worked for, he'd kill me, that is supposing he doesn't die of a stroke first."

"Aren't you worried he'll find out?"

"How would he? The staff barely know him and for all they know I'm with him right now. He hasn't come with me here for two years."

"How is James?" asked Mason as he raised his cup of tea to his lips.

"Jack, really." Said Cate, "Do you think I would tell you anything that you might use to harm my husband?"

"Would you?"

"Of curse not."

"Then why are you here, Cate?"

Cate hung her head and a hint of sadness crossed her face.

"I'm…I feel so lonely sometime, Jack. To James I'm an old friend and house guest. He won't even touch me anymore. He hardly comes home most nights. He spends his night shagging his new secretary; a young, American, blonde chippy he'd picked up in New York. A young little number that barely looks old enough to drink."

"I'm…I'm so sorry, Cate." Mason said, feeling genuine guilt and remorse, as he had personally recruited and trained Harmony; the woman in question.

"And she's not the first. Oh no. He must've slept with every woman in his employ. Well, except for Emma."

"Emma?"

"Emma Peel; Deputy Director of the League. Don't act like you don't know who I'm talking about. It insults my intelligence, Jack."

"I wasn't, honest. I just didn't realize who you were talking about. I thought they had a fling back in the old cold war days, before your time."

"No, she had always been loyal to her husband Peter, even when he was thought to be dead… I hear you have a daughter."

"I'm not sure that's a precise word for it. I spent the night with a woman I met at a Led Zeppelin concert, the week I broke out of Alcatraz. I only met once and didn't leave a powerful impression."

"Have you tried contacting her since then?"

"To what purpose? She's grown to be a good woman without me; I have no place in her life.

"What about you, how's little Andrew?"

"Little Andrew's been appointed a judge, Jack."

"Ah. They grow up so fast. Cate, would you mind if I ask you an honest question?"

"I shudder, but go ahead."

"Do you love him?"

There was a long pause as Cate sipped her tea and looked out the window, as if having heard nothing.

"I do. I'm sure he still loves me, in his own way. James never was the marrying type. We only lasted this long because I've grown too jaded to object to his numerous infidelities."

Mason took one final sip of his tea before putting down the cup on the saucer and standing up.

"Well, I must be off."

"I'm disappointed, Mason." Cate said as she looked up at him.

"Why is that?"

"You have a question on your mind that you dare not ask, in fear of upsetting me."

"And what question is that?"

"You're wondering how is it that I have become what I am when I once fought tooth and nail for global peace."

"Well…"

Cate looked up at him with eyes filled with sorrow and regret.

"This wasn't how it was supposed to be, Jack. It wasn't like this at first."

* * *

_Somewhere beneath the Waters of the Atlantic_

"Sheldon," Nemo said as he looked at Sands' image through the computer screen, "Surely you haven't found a new trail already?"

"We're working on it, Nemo. We're getting there. I have some other news, potentially bad."

"What is it?"

"It's about an incident in Florida."

"Florida?"

"Tommy Vercetti, Vice City's crime boss was found dead this morning. He was the man who helped MacGuffin fake his death. He was killed and dumped in an ally. One gunshot wound in the back of the head with a large caliber bullet; a .357 magnum that blew his face right off. VCPD had a hard time recognizing him."

"And you expect that….?"

"The .357 is standard issue for the League's urban assassinations. The League might have found out we were getting close to MacGuffin, or maybe they were covering their tracks. Priest picked up this trail from the chairman of the reform club who wouldn't tell the League, the King wasn't approached either according to my sources. I'm going to check Avi Gellar and see about him, but it's a safe bet that the League found out that Vercetti knew about MacGuffin's whereabouts and got some information out of him."

"That could mean they know of my contact."

"Yes, the same one you saw fit to keep anonymous, even to me."

"This isn't the time for this discussion; you know I have my reasons."

"Yes, I do. We have a mole in our midst and he's probably how the League found out. What do we do?"

"You get your men to work double-time, I'll discuss this with the other three."

"And Sax and Priest?"

"Priest is in Europe, Miss Sax is in Rhode Island. They're both on a leave of absence, I'll recall them."

"Better not. Early estimates say there's a good chance the lead will turn up in Europe or the States, we could spar some time if they remained where they are. Just have them on the alert."

* * *

"Wow." Said Harmony with a contented grimace as she lay on her back, the beads of sweat covering her cooling away as her body regained it's normal temperature, "That was amazing."

"I'm…I'm glad you thought so." Bond said, out of breath as he picked off his short off the floor, stealthily taking a few pills out of the breast pocket before he put this short back on. He tossed two of the little white pills into his mouth and swallowed, then waited for his heart to slow down.

"Will you stay over tonight, Jimmylegs?" asked Harmony as she turned over on her side, nudging Bond playfully in the hip.

"Afraid not," said Bond, holding Harmony foot to keep it from poking him and reaching with his other hand to fetch his shoes, "Maybe in the weekend. I suppose I better keep Cate company tonight."

"Aaaw! That's kinda sweet. Hey, why are you getting dressed? Where are you going?"

"I better head back to the office." Bond said as he put on his shoes and got up

"Okay, let me get dressed." Said Harmony as she flung the sheets away from her naked body and got out of bed.

"That won't be necessary. You can have the rest of the day off."

"Oh, are you sure?" Harmony asked as she sidled up to Bond and straightened the collar of his shirt and pulled herself up to his lips, "Are you sure that's what you want me to do?"

"Err." Bond stammered as he felt his heart start racing again, and struggled to get away from the young insatiable siren standing before him, "Yes, I'm quit sure."

Bond pried her hands from his collar and gave her a peck on her fingers before bolting towards the door.

As if waiting for a cue, Harmony instantly reached to the briefcase by the bed that she had managed to distract Bond long enough to forget. She placed on the bed, still warm from their heaving bodies and entered the four digit combination on the lock and the briefcase clicked open.

She reached under her mattress and took out a small and slim digital camera, then opened the briefcase and took all Bond's business papers out, about a dozen or so of classified documents marked for your eyes only.

With quick and practiced accuracy, she snapped picture of each and every page, despite her speed she was careful not to cut off any edges and not to sake the camera too much and get a blurry image. Suddenly, there were loud knocks on the door as she was two thirds of the way through.

"Shit! Shit!" Harmony cursed as she tried to rush her work and finish with the remaining documents.

"Miss Kendall." Called whoever was at the door.

"Fuck. Fuck." She cursed as she was five pages away from finishing up.

"Just a minute." She shouted, and then continued with the remaining pages.

"Just a second." She shouted again as she put all the documents back in. Mason's training was rigorous and emphasized accuracy and attention to detail, so she had to place them all back in the same order she had found them.

"Miss Kendall, this is Michael Costas. Open the door."

"I'll be right there." She shouted.

"Fuck. Where's my robe?"

She ran out of her room and picked the robe off the living room floor and put it on as she ran to the door, tying the robe around her torso. She ran her hands to brush her hair back and took a moment to get back into "character".

She opened the door to see Michael Costas; a tall, strapping man with brown hair and Mediterranean features, dressed in a brown suit and sunglasses.

"What's up?" asked Harmony with a smile.

"Mister Bond has forgotten his briefcase."

"He did? Heheh. I swear, he may be dynamite in the sack, but he'd probably for get his head of if wasn't attached. And by head I me-"

"Would you please just bring it?" Costas said as he curled his bottom lip in obvious distaste.

"Sure. I'll be back before you say 'Improper and raunchy humor regarding a mutual superior'."

Harmony walked back into her bedroom and picked up the briefcase, scrambling the digits on the lock and walked back to the front door confidently, feeling pride in a mission well performed.

"Here you go." Said Harmony with a smile as she handed over the briefcase.

"Have a good afternoon." Said Costas as he walked away from her door and down the staircase.

Harmony bolted the door shut then headed back in. She had to pass word to Mernae regarding her findings and didn't want to tell her over the phone in fear that it would be tapped.

Luckily, they had made a plan a while ago. Whenever she had something of the utmost importance to report, she would move the bowl of petunias on her balcony for the right side to the left side. Since Mernae passed her building twice a day on her way to and from her day job, she would know by noticing the subtle change and call her for a girl's night out.

"Perfect." Harmony thought to herself as she stepped onto the balcony, as Mernae would be passing in about twenty minutes.

"GAHHH!" howled Harmony as she felt a sensation like being washed with acid and scampered back into the darkness of her apartment, out of the sunlight.

* * *

_Doomstadt, Latveria_

"Good evening, my son."

Mashu woke up and turned to where the sound had come from, to see Father Mackenzie looking directly at him.

"Umm…"

"You fell asleep during my service."

"Oh. Eh. Sorry."

"Don't be. I take it as a sign from our lord and savior that I should do a better job at writing my next sermon to be less dull; I find it important to make an effort to highlight the relevance of the wisdom found in the good book to these times."

"Erm. If you say so, Father."

"I know you're not who you seem to be, Mister…?"

"Uhh. John. John Gray."

"Small world." Said the Priest with a sly smile.

"What do you mean?"

"Never mind about that. I conjure that's not your real name is it."

"Heh." Said Mashu with a smile as he realized the shape the conversation was taking, "You're a sharp one, too sharp to be a vicar. No offence."

"None taken. To be frank, Patrick Mackenzie isn't my real name either."

"Really?"

"Would I lie to you?" said Mackenzie as he sat next to Mashu on the pew, "It wasn't the name I was born with, no. It is merely the name through which I hope to redeem myself."

"Redeem yourself of what?" asked Mashu as he crossed his arms.

"Too many things to mention. I'm sure your bosses would tell you if you asked."

"My bosses?"

"I know you're here not out of faith, but to watch me." Said Mackenzie as he looked reverently ahead at the cross above the alter, "I won't keep you from your job, you can monitor me to your heart's content. Just tell me, who do you work for?"

"It's hard to say."

"Is it British Intelligence?"

"No."

"CIA? Mossad?"

"No."

"Is it the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?"

"God, no."

"I guess you work for the opposition, then." Said Mackenzie as he got up and walked away.

"Shit." Cursed Mashu, "One job, and I couldn't get it right."

"Don't be too hard on yourself, son. I used to be one of the world's most dangerous spies, there's no one who can constantly watch me without me knowing about it. Now, **fuck off**. And be sure to be here on Sunday, I'll need some feedback on my next sermon."

* * *

That's all folks. Sorry if the last bit with Harmony seemed cheesy. It just seemed uncharacteristic for Harmony to do any job so impressively without at least one minor cock-up. Hope you enjoyed this chapter dedicated solely to espionage and spy stuff.

If you've guessed Mackenzie's identity by now, keep it to yourself.

What was your impression of Cate Archer? I plan on including her in a prominent role in the later part of volume 2.

Mona and Priest will be returning next chapter, probably. Speaking of which, were you familiar with either outside of this story?

**Next Chapter:** Mona and Priest reunite in the closing days of their hunt for Sir Gideon MacGuffin. Priest speaks of his opinion of the French. A deli owner named Muhammad isn't what he seems.


	56. An American and a Scotsman in Paris

A note, my dear readers; all dialogue in italics is supposed to be in French. Savvy?

Also, the newest installment of LoEG has been released, titled the Black Dossier. Only in the US, sadly. Though you can order it through Amazon where it is going for 18 bucks. Once I get my copy you can expect a review. Cheers.

* * *

**Three Days Later**

_Paris, France_

"You…you don't need to drive so fast. I'm not in a hurry." Said Mona as she struggled with car sickness and held on to the upholstery for dear life in the backseat of taxi as it sped through narrow backstreets of Paris.

"_Don't worry, miss. I'm a professional."_ Said the cabbie jovially, he was a man of his thirties with dark skin and black hair, apparently of Algerian extraction.

The taxi cab, which was clearly souped-up to an impressive degree, continued to zip across the city on it's way to a neighborhood in the more arcane part of the city, dodging numerous pedestrians, oncoming traffic and knocking a police officer with a speed-gun off his feet.

The hellish ride was finally over as the taxi screeched to a halt in front of a Turkish deli.

"_We're here. That'll be fourteen euros, ma'am."_

Mona fought nausea as she reached into her pocket to take out three fives and tossed it over, struggling to find the door and escape.

"_Thanks for choosing me for your transport needs, ma'am. Please tell your friends about Daniel Marseille." _

The cab sped away as sirens approached in the distance, Mona stood on the sidewalk hunched over, fighting the will to regurgitate and hovering over a drain.

She straightened up as she felt better and got a proper look around. It was an old, somewhat rustic neighborhood, the kind that seemed to be stuck in a time-bubble since the sixties. Prostitutes stood with bravado on the street corners, silently announcing that they were up for business.

"_Don't look at me, Sister."_ Said a young blonde woman of the night as she puffed her cigarettes and scratched the top of her thigh, _"I don't do that sort of thing. For that, go see Tania over on that corner."_

"_Uh. Thanks."_

Mona walked into the deli, as Sands had instructed her yesterday before she had flown over. If Sands was correct, Priest would be waiting there; both would pick out a pre-specified item and purchase it. After that, their contact would rendezvous with them. Simple as that.

The owner was a man of fifties, olive skinned and dark haired, of an apparent Semitic extraction. He smiled warmly at her as she walked in, and then went back to reading the book in his hand.

She headed deeper into the deli, walking between the rows of canned foods and such. She picked up a can of cat food, and then heard a sound coming from an adjacent isle, so she headed to the end of the store and turned to see who it was.

"Mona." Said Priest as he saw her, he put the bottle in his hand back on the shelf and walked over to her.

"Hey, Priest."

"You look like shit. What happened?"

"Ugh. I got a cab ride from a NASCAR wannabe, apparently." Mona said, brushing her face.

"Huh. Well, welcome to Paris."

"Where have you been?"

"Here." Priest said as he continued looking through the shelves.

"Doing what?"

"There's this guy, sometime."

"He's a guy sometimes?"

"Sure. We meet once every while and catch up, tell a few tall tales and go chick-hunting."

"Where did you go?"

"Rhode Island."

"Who the hell goes to Rhode Island?"

"I have a grandmother there. I thought I owed her a visit."

"Checking up on your family; that's nice."

"Not really. She called the cops on me when I was in the bathroom. I barely got away without killing anyone."

"Ah. C'est la vie."

"Wait a minute, you're not going to do the same kind of thing you did in London. You're not going to talk with a French accent, are you?"

"That depends, can you speak French?"

"No. I can manage to understand how much I'm supposed to pay, or say I want to go to the louver of the little girls' room. I can even curse a little, but that's it."

"I guess not, then. Though, I can make no promises. What did Sands say you had to buy?"

"Pasta and Cat food. You?"

"Rosemary water and Salt. Pasta's right there, by the way."

"Thanks." Said Mona as she picked up a bag of dried pasta from a shelf where Priest pointed.

"I got the salt, where the hell's rosemary water when you need ... Ah, here we are." Priest said as he picked up a bottle of the water. The pair of them headed to the front where they placed their items on the counter. The owner looked at each of them and said aloud,

"_Rosemary water, salt, cat food and pasta. You must work for the opposition."_

"_I take it you're our contact?"_ asked Priest.

"_Yes."_

"_These identity authentication protocols…"_

"_I know; they get a bit tedious. My name is Muhammad."_

"_I'm Priest. I take it you're part of the cell here in Paris?"_

"_That's not really of importance of your mission, is it?"_

"_I guess not." _

"Umm, sorry," Mona said, "But all I understood was 'Je m'apelle Muhammad'."

"_Ah."_ Priest said, _"The imbecile tourist, gorgeous and stunning as she may be, does not speak the language. Bloody Americans, eh?"_

"_It is no trouble."_ Said Muhammad, "I can speak English little. My name is Moses Schmidt, people call me Muhammad."

"Oh, good." Said Mona, "And?"

"I am on your side." Said Muhammad as he stepped from behind his counter and took his keys out of his pocket, locked the door and turned the open sign.

"I was told by Monsieur Sands that you were searching for a man called Gideon. Non?"

"That's right."

"So, this is where he was last spotted?" asked Mona.

"This is where he was spotted being carried away by League Agents." Said Muhammad as he leaned back against the counter.

"That's it, then?" asked Priest, slightly wide-eyes and frustrated The League has MacGuffin? I let someone carve me a smile for nothing?"

"Huh? I'm…I'm afraid so. I think."

"Why didn't anyone tell us before we got here, then? Save us the trip or something."

"Perhaps not all hope is lost. Sands want's you to gather as much information as possible regarding his capture."

Mona sighed, "So what do you know?"

"Sands' men have come to the fact that Gideon MacGuffin had stayed in the Moulin Rouge Hotel for a time around six months ago. He paid using a bank account that they had linked to his Cayman island account. Perhaps just as Sands' men were able to find the connection, so was the League.

"I had did some searching, and found out from a concierge that I bribed that there was a unit of Interpol Agents came in to arrest MacGuffin, the story told to the guests and the management was that MacGuffin was an international war criminal. They convinced all parties to keep silent on the matter. The concierge also said that the 'Interpol squad' was a group of seven men; six looked like muscle, while the seventh was in charge."

"So, we bribe or break in and we pinch security's surveillance footage from the security cameras. Find out who the seventh guy was."

"That was six months ago; most 'otels would recycle their tapes by now. Besides, there's the chance that the League confiscated the tapes following the arrest."

"Alright, so this seventh man; did you get a proper description?"

"English, about a meter-seventy-two. Brown hair, big classes in a purple suit. Overall a very odd man."

"Not in London he won't be."

* * *

"Nice guy, huh?" mumbled Mona as she adjusted her messenger bag's strap, the bag was filled with her and Priest's equipment supplied by Muhammad, equipment such as two surpassed Berettas and several clips of ammo, two tazer guns, the standard laptop used for communicating with the Yellow Submarine and Sands' laptop as well as fake IDs and other items.

"Yeah, he's okay." Said Priest as he walked at her side in the minutes after sunset, "So, what are you thinking?"

"There's gotta be something in the hotel that might point us in the right direction. We should investigate the goings on during that day."

"They gotta keep records, right? Unlike constant video surveillance, bills and invoices don't take much memory so they probably hang on to them for much longer."

"Exactly," said Mona, "I have a plan. Do you have a pulse?"

"No. Why?"

"Can you fake one, then?"

* * *

_London, England_

"This has to be Harmony's best work." Said Mernae as she sat next to Mason in the Winchester Tavern, looking over copies of Bond's papers as Shaun the bartender brought over two pints of Guinness.

"Indeed. Lots of interesting thing here, Bond's travel itinerary is going to be very useful. There's also the most recent Red List, we had had only the bottom half of it."

"What's this, now?" asked Mernae as she raised one piece of paper, "It seems to be a request for an extension of a prisoner's detainment. This is one of the photographs taken lastly by Harmony, her work was rushed so it's a bit blurry, not to mention tat bottom is cut off."

"That's odd." Said Bond, "Where from?"

"Jabal Naffus, Qumar."

"Dear god, that about as bad a place to be held by the League as you can get."

"Why would Bond need to sign this?"

"Why indeed?"

* * *

_Paris, France_

Priest yelped and grabbed his chest with one hand and grabbing the rail of the stairs with the other, electing the stares of a few of the staff and the guests as he stood at the top of the flight of stairs leading between the first floor and the lobby.

"_My…my chest…my arm… is …argh!"_

With one final gut-wrenching groan Priest grabbed his chest with both hands, staggering forward before his knees buckled and he fell, tumbling down the stairs.

Priest landed at the bottom after rolling down twenty-five steps, hitting his head several times on the way.

"_My god!"_ cried a woman of middle-age in an evening dress as the rasping man landed at her feet, _"He's …He's having a stroke! Help!"_

Several of the hotel's staff rushed over, as did some of the guests. They all stood in a circle looking in horror and fascination at Priest as foamed, rasped and trembled. Exchanging looks of helplessness and disbelief, each muttering something or another.

"You look live you've seen a ghost. Do you know him, Mister Langdon?"

"_Looks like epilepsy."_

"_Someone should get security!"_

"_Make way. I might be able to help him."_

A young woman of her twenties kneeled down and grabbed Priest's wrist.

"_Good god! I've only ever seen a temperature like this on a corpse! He barely has a pulse. Someone get a medic, quick!"_

* * *

Mona casually waltzed into the security office second after three of the men in it ran out in a hurry to inspect the commotion in the lobby. Only one was left there, he immediately took notice of her and stood up.

"_Wait a minute, miss. This is a restricted area. You can't come in here. What's that in your hand?"_

Mona raised her hand and pulled the trigger on the tazer-gun she held, ejecting a pin dragging a wire that plunged into the man's chest and conducted hundreds of volts of electricity that promptly knocked him out.

She placed the tazzer gun back in her shoulder bag and sat at the main consol, pulling out an external-hard drive and connecting it to the server before going to work.

* * *

"_He's getting better!"_

"_So I see."_

"George!" cried Mona as she ran to where Priest lay on the ground, pretending to recover from a seizure he never had, "They told me somebody was having an attack! I just prayed it wasn't you!"

"I'm alright." Said Priest, faking exhaustion, "I…I think I had a seizure, but … I'm so glad I didn't die without seeing you one last time, Lisa."

"Will you be alright, Monsieur? Can you walk?" asked one of the guests as he helped Priest up.

"Yes, I'm… I'm okay."

"Oh, George. Did you forget to take your pills again?"

"I'm sorry, Lisa."

"Oh, enough of that." Said Mona, "We need to get you to a hospital."

"Do you need any help?" asked the guest.

"No, sir. It's fine, it's happened before. We jest need to get him to a hospital fast."

"Head for Our Lady of Sorrows, tell them that you're friends of Police Chief Cloesau."

"Thank you, Sir." Said Mona as she grabbed Priest by the shoulders and they made their way to the door as the crowd dispersed and each returned to his buiness.

"We're wasting our time with all this world-traversing spy bullshit." Said Priest as the two of them kept up the act, "We should be goddamn actors."

"Yeah. That 'It's good that I didn't die before seeing you' bit was hammy, though."

"Yeah, I thought so too."

* * *

"Shit…" cursed Priest as he unbuttoned his jacket, then ripped the pins connected to the tazer gun out of his flesh, then waited for a few second for his pulse to completely stop, "I'm beginning to hate this gig. Found anything?"

Mona sat at the passenger seat with a laptop in her lap as the two sat in a parked car in a dark alley a block away from the Moulin Rouge.

"Almost." said Mona as she banged away at the keyboard, "Got it."

"Whenever you're ready."

It took Mona a minute to find what she was after. And she did, she said,

"This is MacGuffin's bill."

"Yeah, I see it. Cognac, crab, masseuse, dry cleaning, crab again. I don't get it."

"The dry cleaning thing is registered the afternoon of the day he was arrested. Muhammad said he was arrested at lunchtime."

"I don't get it."

"The dry cleaning was to remove a stain from a jacket; a purple velvet jacket to be precise. And then it was sent to London. The dry cleaning bill is charged to MacGuffin."

"Okay, I get it. The seventh man has his jacket stained while making the arrest, the hotel manager offers to get it cleaned and sent to the man's place in London. I assume there's an address?"

"Yeah. It's in soho. The guy's initials are A.D.P."

"So we know who arrested MacGuffin. Time to call sands."

* * *

Surely you know who the fuck ADP is, do you not?

R&R.

**Next Chapter:** Priest and Mona return to London, but not everything is as easy as it seems. Priest and Mona confront a man of mystery in the final day of their hunt for Gideon MacGuffin.


	57. London Calling

**Now**

_Paris, France_

"You know, this place does bring me back a bit." Said Priest as he leaned against the car door and smoked a cigarettes, "With the war and shit, not many people from where we come from think much of the place. But I really never get enough of it."

"Uh-huh." Said Mona, who didn't pay him much attention as she tried to get the laptop to work.

"Yeah, I've been here many times. I first came her with my dad and brother, nearly three-hundred years ago. When I left Scotland, I made bee-line to this very spot. I even stayed here for all of the nineteen-nineties and the early twentieth century. The place was different then; wild as hell. Back then the Moulin Rouge was a cabaret, and boy was it a sight to see. Man, those girls…."

"Yeah, sure." Said Mona with a sigh as her efforts met failure, but she pressed on.

"I remember there was this girl called Satine, red-head, six feet tall, god she was beautiful. She died of TB, and an English buddy of mine called Chris wrote the most beautiful poetic play about her. Sadly he died to of a multitude of venereal diseases before he could publish it."

"That's nice."

"Yup, the men were bold, the women were loose and the absinthe was flowing; fun for the whole family. We lived our lives to the fullest in every fucking second of every fucking day. Good times. Good times.

"I lost my virginity here, you know?"

"**Ew!**"

"Not my virginity-virginity, that I lost when I was thirteen. What I mean is that the first time I had slept with a human woman was in this old town. I left in 1905 for Russia and only returned when I was dropped over Normandy and never since."

Priest flicked his cigarette away and turned to Mona who was squatting on the hood with the computer in her lap.

"That's still not working?"

"Yup. I can't get in touch with neither Sands nor Nemo."

"Maybe Muhammad can help us?"

"I've been calling but he's not answering. He's probably closed shop for the day." Said Mona as she shut the laptop and got off the car's hood, "Maybe we should wait till morning."

"Why?" asked Priest, "You know Sands is going to just pass the word to Nemo who will tell us to hunt this A.D.P. bastard down and make him talk. We could be in London before sunrise and be done with all this crap."

* * *

**Hours Later**

_London, England_

"It's raining." Said Mona wryly as she and Priest walked out of Heathrow Airport, "Lovely."

"Alright. Head over to the Winchester, get Shaun to get you Sands. Beat him up if you have to."

"What, alone? What about you?"

"I'm heading to Soho."

"Like hell you are. You're going to get yourself killed."

"Shan't."

"Yeah, you will. If this guy arrested MacGuffin then you can bet he's one of their top men, and probably has his place security-ed up the ass, he'll know you're coming a mile ahead."

"Just because I tend to get shot a lot doesn't mean I'm stupid, I'll just scope out the place, do a little reconnaissance and get word back to you at the pub."

"Priest, I-"

"Look, do you want to wait a couple of hours for the sun to come up when I'll be useless or do you want to get this frigger sorted, pet?"

"Ugh, fine." Said Mona as she hailed down a cab, "I'll hear from you in an hour."

* * *

_Cairo, Egypt_

"Why are we studying these schematics, Robert?" asked Sayid as he, Barnes and Almasry sat around the kitchen table looking over detailed blueprints of some prison in the sovereign nation of Qumar, situated in the Persian gulf on the shored of the Hermes pass, opposite to the UAE and bordering Iran.

"Apparently the spooks in our organization have been seeing some traffic around this prison, there might be a time soon that we have to storm it."

"You're joking, right?"

"Of course not. Now, what would be the quickest way to break in and how far would we make our way before anyone is a wiser?"

* * *

_Berlin, Germany_

Lucy Wagner placed the empty glass with the other two in the sink, her trembling hands once again temporarily steady.

She had had three glasses of whisky so far, each time hoping the effect would last and that she would be calm through the night. But those feeling always returned, that sneaking suspicion that something very bad and very big was about to happen, it would be any cause to worry if she wasn't a psychic.

She had told Metzger all about it, but he shrugged it off, calling it feminine nerves not being able to handle the pressure. Claiming that as long as she didn't have a vision then he didn't care about her 'girly feelings'.

Metzger was truly a chauvinist pig, the worse of all in the Berlin cell of the opposition. She mused that she could find more understanding from the man locked in the closet.

Thinking of the man in the closet sent a chill through her spine as she realized that his staying in line depended entirely on her, and that she couldn't control his will if she kept drinking, and if she lost control of him it could mean any number of things, such as them all having their throats slit in their sleep.

Lucy backed away from the sink and the cupboard filled with liquor, resolving to find some other way to stay calm through the night without ever loosing control.

* * *

_Somewhere near the Rock of Gibraltar_

"What are you doing here?" asked Jenny Diver, First Mate of the Black Pearl, "I was under the impression that I assigned you to man the bridge. Either I have been confusing the terms 'Bridge' and 'Bar' all these years I've been helping run this ship, or you're in here drinking on the job. Which is it, Mister Brady?"

George Costas smiled in amusement as he leaned with both elbows on the bar and watched as the sailor he'd been serving drinks to turned pale and his lower lip started trembling as the sailor tried to conjure up some excuse that would soothe Miss Diver.

Many a times have a one of the crew saw fit to disobey the orders of Miss Diver on the count of her gender and apparent young age, though in the whole submarine she was younger than only the Captain himself, but whoever they were, no matter big and virile and disrespectful they were, no one could maintain their bravado when faced with the wrath of Pirate Jenny.

"I…I…"

"Oh, fuck off! On now, get to the bridge! And pray there's an opening scrubbing the toilets or I'll have to find a more demeaning job for you to do for the next week."

"I'm… Oh, god!"

The sailor all but ran away as Jenny sat at the bar and Costas straightened up.

"Good evening, Madam Mate."

"George," said Jenny warmly, shedding her furiously angry demeanor, "I've known you since you were a wee tyke. Enough with that Madam Mate rubbish."

"Alright, Miss Diver. What can I get you?"

"Rum and Coke."

"Coming up."

* * *

_The East End, London_

"Closed?" wondered Mona as she stood at the door of the Winchester door, looking at the sign that indicated the place wasn't open for business. It was odd, since it was not a weekend and the time was an hour away from last calls and the pub had no reason to be closed.

She stepped into the phone booth nearby and dialed the pub's number, and listened as it rang for a minute with no one picking up.

Mona then went to the back and climbed the stairs to the apartment above which served as Shaun and his wife Liz's residence. She rang the doorbell for a long time and received no answer. Finally she got fed up and kicked the door in. Then waltzed in and turned on the lights and thunder roared outside.

Mona's eyes widened as she saw the apartment in ruins, books ripped apart and scattered on the floors, furniture turned over, numerous shattered LP records in the corners, house plants plucked from their pots and tossed aside. It had all the sign of a robbery. Mona however, could see that this was far from being a robbery, it was something far worse.

"Shaun!" she called as she went through the apartment looking for the bartender, and as she went from room to room she saw similar signs of ransacking, shattered mirrors and gutted drawers.

Seeing that Shaun was nowhere to be seen, she went downstairs to the pub itself, at the bottom of the stairs she flicked a switch on circuit-board and turned on the lights.

There was instantly a faint, stifled moan as the lights came on, coming from the pub; A call for help.

Mona reached for her gun only to discover she had none. She looked around to find a suitable weapon, settling on a machete leaning against the corner by the backdoor.

Holding the massive blade firmly with both hands, she cautiously proceeded into the bar, anticipating anything. The pub was trashed as well, but that wasn't what caught Mona off guard.

Shaun had a gag in his mouth and his hands in cuffs behind his back, his face was battered and bloody. He was struggling to balance himself as he hung from the rafters above with a noose around his neck. One of his feet pushed the top of a barstool, trying to keep the noose from fatally tightening around his neck.

"Jesus Christ!"

Shaun, who had his back to Mona grunted once again in a desperate plea for help.

"Hang on, Shaun. I'm coming!"

Mona quickly jumped onto the bar and steadied herself by holding one of the rafters and leaning over, then with one motion she sliced at the rope with the heavy machete in her hand, cutting the rope at once and sending Shaun falling down on the floor.

She got down and tossed the machete aside, then tore off the gag on Shaun's mouth, then tried to help Shaun up.

"LIZ!" cried Shaun as he tried to get up.

"Shaun, what the hell happened? Who did this?"

"They were here…Oh god, they came looking for Sands!"

"Who was here?"

"I DON'T KNOW! The people you've been scheming against all this time! They came and started asking me all these questions, and when I didn't answer they got to Liz and …. God, Liz!"

"Shaun, what happened to Liz?"

"They took her to the back, said they'd leave her alone if I talked. I didn't know what to tell them….." said Shaun in a near Whimper, "Oh god, she was screaming."

"Shaun, where did they take her?"

"They…they took her to the back…. I…I can't get up, I think something happened to my knee when I fell. You have to….Oh god!"

"What?"

"You…your steps."

Mona looked behind her to see a trail of bloody footsteps coming from the back; they were hers. Mona's eyes widened as she realized she had been standing in a pool of blood in the darkness in the back and shuddered to think whose blood it was.

Mona got up and ran to the back to see the crimson puddle that had eluded her a minute ago, the puddle seemed to emanate from the back storage room. With unsure fingers Mona reached to the door knob and turned it and pushed it open.

The smell reminded Mona of the times when she was a little girl when she, her sister Lisa and her mother would pass the butcher shop where their father used to work when he was on probation and couldn't make a dishonest living.

"J…Jes…Oh, shit. Jesus Christ! Oh, Jesus Christ!"

* * *

_Soho, London_

As planned, Priest had made his way to A.D.P.'s residence in Soho; it was an eight story block-wide apartment building in an affluent neighborhood. Taking a look at the plaque at the front door he found one resident with those possible initials and that the man lived in a luxury suite that comprised the entirety of the top floor.

Investigating further, Priest learned that A.D.P. appears to have been staying in for the past few weeks, hardly ever going out and that he has ceased to throw any parties or gatherings for a month, an oddity for the man who had a reputation as a hyper-social and fun loving individual.

Priest concluded that he there were a few possibilities; A.D.P. was under house arrest, or A.D.P. was being cautious, perhaps with the League anticipating an attack from the opposition, in which case there would likely to be a number of the League's soldiers inside, which would make any attack nothing short of a suicidal.

As Priest stood on the rooftop of a building adjacent to the apartment building and about one floor higher, he decided that both were unlikely. If A.D.P. was a major Agent of the League, then being under house arrest would be unlikely as the League had the sway to nullify any kind of legal sanctions. And if it were the second, then surely it would make more sense for the League to dispatch A.D.P. to some distant estate in the country where he could be heavily guarded and detecting the opposition's activates would be easier. Therefore it had to be something else entirely. Priest, however, failed to speculate what it could be.

Priest leaned against the ledge and looked straight ahead at an open window leading into the darkness of A.D.P.'s penthouse, as if inviting him to take the jump. Priest wanted to go in right then, but remembered promising Mona to do nothing but scout and then give Mona a call.

Priest had to call Mona.

"There's probably a phone in the guy's apartment." Mused Priest as he walked a distance back and then bolted towards the ledge with inhuman speed then leapt the great distance between the two buildings. It was only in mid-flight that Priest realized that the rain would probably make clinging to any walls unattainable.

Luckily, Priest had the proper speed and angle to land exactly in the open window's ledge. He crouched silently in exactly the same spot for a few seconds and then stepped onto the floor, the heels of his boot touching thick shag carpeting.

Within a second, Priest's sense heightened and he could hear the clicking sound of a the safety pin being removed from a handgun, as well as the smell of some kind of liquor, Scotch to be precise, blended in with a rank odor.

"I should warn you," came a voice in the darkness, "I was trained to shoot by a Texas Ranger with surprisingly oriental features. If you make any sudden motion I will shoot. You can then pick out the bits of your brains that have not washed away by the rain from the gutter outside. But you won't be able to, because you'll be dead."

"Fair enough." Said Priest.

The man's voice was somewhat slurred, the speaker was apparently drunk. Priest could hear him moving and a moment later a switch was flicked on and lights were turned on.

'This is weird.' Priest thought to himself as he got a look at the penthouse's interior. The walls were painted in a variety of bright colors, rainbows and abstract flower designs were prominent. Indeed, the entire place appeared to be a psychedelic time bubble from the seventies, a remnant of the bygone days of free love and flower power that Priest remembered fondly.

The decor wasn't the main thing on Priest's mind, however. Sitting on an orange couch on the other end of the hall was the man Priest assumed was A.D.P.

"Put your hands up, chummy." said the man as he got off the couch and staggered towards Priest, holding a massive silver plated gun aimed at Priest's head in one hand and a bottle of Scotch in the other.

He was as described, not a big man, roughly the same height as Priest, 5'8", and not the least bit muscular. He was in a state of extremely modest dress, wearing only a pair of Union Jack boxer shorts, a pair of wide, black rimmed glasses and only one sock. His hair was thick, chestnut brown and unkempt, his chest was particularly hirsute and his face bore several days' worth of stubble.

"How are you?" the man drunkenly asked.

"I'm fine, thanks."

"Don't be smart with me! Who is your name?"

"Priest, Judas."

"Sounds made up."

"Aye, I get that a lot."

"What are you doing here? Popped in for a spot of burglary?"

"I was hoping I could talk to you."

"Your timing in impeccable. Half a bottle from now and I would have been...unreachable." said the man and belched. Priest took the stench in good graces.

"Who sent you?"

"What makes you think someone sent me?"

"Was it the ministry? Come begging for me back?" asked the man, waving his gun around, "No... It was the fucking League of Extraordirnarely Popinjays, roight?"

"Far from it. Opposition."

The man stared blankly at Priest for a moment then burst out laughing, Priest didn't find much resistance as he went for the man's gun and pulled out of his loose grip. The man didn't seem to notice or even care.

"Of course... hHehehheHEHehehe... How utterly proper."

"So is that an 'alright' for the talking, then?"

The man started staggering and spinning in place as he raised the bottle to his lips to have a monumental swig,

"Oh, we'll talk... We'll talk to your heart's regret." said the man, "The thing I'll tell you, Priest Judas, oh the thing I'll tell you..."

"That's great. It's Judas Priest, incidentally."

"Sir Austin Powers, at your service."

* * *

For those wondering about the D, Danger is Austin's middle name.

**Next Chapter:** If you still need an incentive to tune in next time, then I have failed miserably. But anyway, Powers spills his guts. Sands' fate is revealed. We learn what's really going on. And most importantly we learn who is that man locked away in a closet in Berlin.


	58. International Man of Mystery

**Now**

_Soho, London, England_

"You know, I'm aware you serve in an enterprise built around self gain through fascistly pragmatic means, and you look like an arsehole." said Priest as he circled Sir Austin as he appeared to be stifling sobs and drinking ravenously from his bottle of Scotch.

"But...are you alright?"

"What does it look like?" asked Powers despondently, "What do you want?"

"Gideon MacGuffin."

"What about him?"

"Around six months ago you and six others who I assume to be League Agents arrested him out of the Moulin Rouge Hotel in Paris."

"You've done your 'omework."

"What happened after that?"

"I interrogated him for a bit, then drugged him and put him on a US Air force aircraft."

"Integrated him about what?"

"The basics, he swore he wasn't the man we thought he was. He was very convincing."

"But you're sure it was him?"

"MacGuffin's extracolicular activities in Eton included membership of the Drama Club. If the records are to be believed, his performance as Henry the Eight was _awe-inspiring_. We knew he could have had undergone plastic surgery. We ran a voice check against a recording we had from his days in the League, an expert corroborated that the voice was one and the same, though MacGuffin has skillfully adopted a Scottish accent to shield it."

"So, is MacGuffin still alive?" asked Priest cautiously.

"Last I heard."

"Why? I thought your people tended to eliminate security threats."

"Oh, we do. The prisoner never admited to being MacGuffin. I mean he did, but my tape-recorder was shot at the time and so I haven't got a shred of evidence beside my word, which is not enough for Bond... You see, Bond is so worried about MacGuffin messing up his plans that he has decided to keep him alive, and make every breathing moment a living hell for him, until he admits to being MacGuffin, only then will he be able to breathe easy and let hisformer friend die."

"And he still hasn't?"

"Yes. A normal man would've cracked by now. That alone should be proof enough, but Bond doesn't want to take the chance of executing this man when the real MacGuffin is still out there, he can't rest till he has him. And MacGuffin knows it, that's why he's still claiming to be a retired University of Edinbrugh Professor."

"Where is he, then?"

"Jabal Nafus, Qumar." said Powers as he opened his liquor cabinet and picked out a bottle of Whisky, "Will that be all?"

Priest angrily lunged at Powers and took hold of him, pushing him hard against a wall and keeping him there, pinned with his back to the wall with one arm.

"Powers," growled Priest, his fangs elongating as they often did uncontrollably when he was overcome with anger, "I'm not a man you want to fuck with. I've killed more people than most people know, I've seen things and walked paths few people know about and wish they hadn't... I've once driven a woman to insanity using only words and I've once tortured a President of the U. S. of fucking A. Hurting a Scotch-pissed over-the-hill hipster like you isn't going to cost me any sleep... So unless you have a death wish, you should start telling me the truth now."

"What a silly, pathetic monster you are." said Powers, "There are two things that scare me, the first thing isn't you and the second is going to happen in a few years. I AM telling you the truth."

"Are you expecting me to believe that the man the League trusted to capture the man who holds their best kept secret is going to tell me what I want without a drop of blood?"

"Why, I don't expect anything, Mister Priest. The truth is; I'm not the man whom the League trusted to do that job. Not anymore. And if you would kindly let me o and drink my whisky, you would see that torturing me wouldn't make a difference in the grand scheme of things."

Priest sneered, his eyes turned completely black and he took a great whiff of the man under his mercy. Beyond the smell of various spirits and the stench of several days without a shower, Priest could not smell fear.

Priest let him down and leaned over to pick up the bottle of whisky that had landed on a throw pillow and handed it to Powers.

"Very civil of you." said Powers as he uncorked the bottle and raised it in a toast, "Cheers."

"Trust me on this, squire," said Priest as he headed for the door, "Whatever happens, I will live through it. And if I live through a trap or a setup, I will come back for you."

"You won't." said Powers and swigged from the bottle, "You won't live through it. I don't know if you'll find MacGuffin or not, but if you do and you find out what you will; you will know you have no chance in hell of surviving Phoenix."

Priest stopped in place, at the threshold of the entrance to Powers' loft. He froze for a second and turned around to look behind him, at Powers who was staggering to the open window through which Priest has entered.

"Phoenix? You know what Phoenix is?!"

"Oh, do I!"

"How?"

"While I was interrogating MacGuffin, he managed to destroy my tape-recorder and revealed himself. You see, Bond needs to be sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that MacGuffin is in his grasp before he could kill him. That's the only reason he's still alive, after six months in prison and under torture, the prisoner is yet to confess to being MacGuffin. And without that tape, anything I say wouldn't amount to much.

"MacGuffin begged me for a chance to escape. He knew me by reputation in the sixties, you see. He thought he could appeal to my ideals, thinking that if I found out what I was protecting I would possibly help him."

"Powers, what is it? What's Phoenix."

"War," said Powers in a near whimper, "Famine, a plague. A world war, in every sense of the word. Not between sets of half a dozen countries; a _**world**_ war that will see battle and hell and massive loss in lives everywhere."

"What?" said Priest, his mouth twisting into a smirk, "Come on, stop pulling my chain. You're lying."

"No."

"YOU'RE LYING!" yelled Priest, furry consuming his non-beating heart, "There's no way the League would start a global war. Where would they... I mean... It makes no sense!"

"War and sense are disjointed by nature, baby."

"NO! It's IMPOSSIBLE!"

"I thought so too." said Powers as he picked up his gun from the table and took another swig before hurling the bottle away, "When I got back to London, I confronted the Deputy Director, she denounced those claims. When I tried to dig deeper she said that if I pursued the matter anymore, if I attempted to leak that information or contact you people, they would kill Dougie."

"Dougie?"

"He's me brother." said Powers tearfully, "He used to be a terrorist, he's reformed but... He still has to pay for his crimes. They said they'd orchestrate a prison riot and he would be killed and that there was nothing I could do to stop it, except for cooperate and keep my trap shut while the world slips into hell."

"Shit." said Priest passing nervously, feeling the tremors from the world as it came down around him, "What the hell are we gonna do?"

"We?"

"Yes, we! You think you're going to get off that easy, you got another think coming."

"I don't think so, I'll shortly be thinking no more. I've beard that burden for six months, now it's your turn. Good luck with it. The fate of the world is your problem, now."

"Shit shit shit shit shit shit..." as Priest paced and cursed, he heard a metallic click, the kind he had heard only minutes ago.

"What the...?" wondered Priest as he turned around, having realized what was about to happen.

"God save the queen." said Powers then pulled the trigger.

The splatter of blood, bone fragments, chestnut hair and brain hit the brightly colored ceiling. The body fell to the ground with a thud, a look of quiet desperation on Powers' face and a smoking gun in his hand.

* * *

_East London_

Shaun sat on the floor leaning with his back to the bar, his face blank of expression. Mona stood behind the bar, nervous as hell. She had to beg and plead with Shaun so that he wouldn't go the backroom and see what has become of Liz.

He did it anyway, despite having a damaged knee and his hands handcuffed behind his back. When Mona caught up with him, she found him in his present state; catatonic. He nevr screamed, never cried, he'd just been there staring into space. She doubted he even noticed that Mona had picked his handcuffs and freed him of them.

The phone rang and Mona was only too eager to pick it up.

"Priest?"

_"Yeah, what's the situation?"_

"Bad. Very. The League were here, Priest, they trashed the bar and killed L... You have to get here, quickly."

_"Oh shit. Is Shaun alright?"_

"He'll live. Where are you?"

_"Um.. I'm standing in the residence of Sir Austin D. Powers."_

Mona sighed.

"So you went in when you weren't supposed to. Typical. Any other day and I would've been mad. Is he there?"

_"Sir Austin Powers is... **indisposed**."_

"Well what did you find out?"

_"They've got MacGuffin in a prison in Jabal Naffus, Qumar."_

"Are you sure?"

_"I'm as sure as I can ever get."_

"Did he tell you anything about Phoernix?"

_"..."_

"Priest, did he say anything about Phoenix or not?"

_"No. Not a thing."_

"Alright, you better get here, fast."

_"I'm on my way."_

* * *

**Twenty Minutes Later**

Priest walked away from the backroom at the Winchester, stepping into the pub where Shaun still sat on the floor, catatonic.

"Fubar." muttered Priest.

"What?"

"We need to get out of here," said Priest placing Powers' silver plated gun on the bar, "Like soon."

"We need to get word to Nemo first." said Mona as she took then gun and stuck it in the back of her pants.

"How? The laptop don't work and Sands is unreachable. Probably dead. We don't have any way to reach Nemo."

"We don't," said Mona, "But we know someone who does."

"Who?"

"Wayne."

"Wayne?" asked Priest as he watched Mona reach for the phone.

"Nemo told me he was using Wayne as his man in Gotham off the book; meaning he would be the only one communicating with him."

"Gotcha. He'll have a direct contact with the boss, one unlikely to have gone tits up even now."

"Exactly."

"Well then we better do it right." said Priest as he slammed his hand down on the phone to cut Mona off as she was dialing. He jumped over the bar and crouched down, then picked up a cardboard box that read 'Lost & Found'.

"The League might trace the call if we used the pub's phone, and realize Wayne is working with us. But if we use a random number, say a phone belonging to one of the several customers who come in here during the week..."

"It'll be a longshot, do it."

* * *

_Gotham City, Maryland_

Alfred Pennyworth picked up the receiver and put it to his ear and said, "Good Evening. You've reached the Wayne Manor, how may I be of service?"

_"Al, this is Judas Priest. You remember me, right? I showed up with last December with one arm and no legs. You hosed me down on Christmas morning."_

"I remember, Sir. How have you been?"

"Funny you should ask. I'm having a bad day, you see. I need your boss's help, its really important, I wouldn't be calling if it wasn't."

_"Certainly, sir. Just one moment."_

* * *

_Okinawa, Japan_

Nemo turned pressed a button on his console, surprised to see his friend Bruce Wayne contacting him for once.

"Bruce, is anything wrong?"

Wayne appeared on the screen, sat in some dark cavernous space that appeared to be a cave.

"Nemo, some of your people called me. Priest and Miss Sax are in London, they asked me to tell you to call them at the Winchester."

"London? Did they say what were they doing there?"

"No. They seemed anxious."

"Thanks, Bruce."

"Goodbye."

* * *

_London_

Mona picked up the phone as soon as it started ringing.

"Nemo."

_"Mona, what's going on? Why are you in London?"_

"The trail followed us here. Priest tracked down the agent who arrested MacGuffin. MacGuffin is being held in Jabal Nafusah in Qumar. That's the good news."

_"There's bad news? What is it?"_

"The League have hit the Winchester. We think they might have went after Sands as well. Nemo, when we were in Paris we couldn't get in touch with you or Sands. I think the League is coming after all of you, the opposition I mean."

_"...Dear god."_

"Tell him to give us Sands' address." said Priest as he looked out the window nervously.

"Nemo.."

_"I heard. Its 222B Baker Street. I'll call you in fifteen minutes; that would be enough for you to get there."_

"Let's go." said Priest as he headed for the door.

"What about him?" asked Mona as she hung the phone, gesturing at Shaun who sat still on the floor, silent as a grave.

"He's a dead man if he stays here." said Priest, "We'll have to take him with us."

* * *

Last time I promised things that I couldn't deliver. The truth is thatthere was more in this chapter but I decided to split it in half, particularly to let the vague description of Phoenix sink in a bit. On that note, if the idea o an engineered World War seems dated, unoriginal and uninspired, please bare with me. 

**Next Chapter:** Sands's fate is revealed. As well as the identity of the man in the Berlin closet.


	59. Exodus

**Now**

_Marbella, Spain_

"...Goodbye." said Mina into the telephone, hung up and tossed the phone onto the sofa before walking onto the balcony. She leaned against the rail and looked ahead at the white sandy beach that lay before her and the sun at is rose above the horizon. And as with every sunrise she felt herself grow weaker and her senses dulling.

She reached into her hair and removed the clip holding her dyed blond locks so that it flowed down her back and ran her hand through it, taking in a deep breath as the sun continued to rise.

The balcony door opened and Mina turned around to see Mandy stepping out to join her.

"Hey," said Mandy with a smile, squinting her eyes due to the sudden light, "You're up early."

"Yes... I forgot to call Graem last night and he called me."

"Well now that that's call is out of the way, do you feel like hitting the beach a little early? The weather's nice and all."

"Yes it is, love." said Mina, "Look, something's come up."

Mandy sighed disappointedly, "So what did Bauer tell you?"

"He had to launch the sting we had been preparing."

"I thought we weren't ready yet?"

"We weren't its some kind of emergency apparently. All the opposition cells we are aware of are being attacked; their Intelligence division has already been wiped out."

"Yeah, okay. So when do we have to leave?"

"We'll have to cut our vacation short. But we won't leave until tomorrow evening at the earliest."

"Really?"

"Sure, pet. Graem Bauer is a very competent man; he can handle everything until we get back. We'll spend all day here and tomorrow morning and afternoon. We'll do whatever you want. We owe it to ourselves."

"Are sure that'll be okay, Josephine?"

Mina smiled as she wrapped her arms around Mandy, "I'm the dragon lady that orders their arses around, who's going to say anything?"

* * *

_London, England_

"Right..." said Priest as he, Mona and Shaun sat in the latter's Jaguar having pulled up on a corner of Baker Street, "Sunup is nigh, we'll have to act quick. I'll have a look and"

"Like hell you will," said Mona as she cocked Austin Power's gun, "I'm going in there with you."

"Mona, you've got just one gun and no extra ammo, the thing's not even fully loaded."

"To this day I've got your ass out of the frying-pan three times, I'm going in to make sure you come back out."

"I'm glad you care so much, but someone has to stay here with Shaun."

"Right." said Mona as she turned in her seat to look back at Shaun who sat in the middle of the back seat, staring miserably at his feet with eyes shot red from crying.

"Umm... Shaun, we need to get out to see if Sands is alive. Will you be.."

"Just..." said Shaun with a chockfull voice, "Just go."

Mona and Priest exchanged a look of hesitation.

"I'll be... here."

"Good." said Priest as he got out of the car, taking the key with him, Mona followed him as the two ran towards Sands' building.

* * *

Priest kicked the door off its hinges and burst into the flat, fangs bared and body ready for battle. Mona followed him in, holding the gun high with both hands.

There was nobody there, not the League and not Sands either.

The apartment was ample and tidy, there were two three closed doors leading to rooms as well as a kitchen and a bathroom and the curtains were drawn. It was mostly vacant except for some sofas and a number of foldable long tables leaned against the wall. There were also several computer keyboards, printers, monitors and mice all placed in the corner, though there was not a single main unit among them.

The cell phone in Priest's pocket rang as Mona headed for a door and prepared to burst in guns blazing before Priest hollered,

"Don't bother. They're already gone.."

Priest took out the cell phone and pressed the speaker button before laying it on a table.

"Hello?"

"Miss Sax, what's the situation?" said Nemo on the other line.

"We're here, the place is empty. There's nobody here. Maybe Sands and his people knew what was coming and bailed?"

"No," Priest said, "They didn't. They're dead, all of them."

"How do you know?"

"The smell." said Priest grimly as he stood in the middle of the living room with his arms crossed, "The League were here, they killed everybody and took the bodies away, even cleaned the place up behind them down to the last drop of blood and aired out the room. I can still pick up a scent, though; among the odors of Windex and alcohol I can definitely smell cordite and blood."

"Are the computers still there?"

"No, just a bunch of peripherals. They've cleaned the place up."

"They've seized out entire archives. Damn them all to hell!" cursed Nemo loudly. The sound of the man loosing his composure rattled Mona as she had known him to be a cool-headed customer.

"I have a job to do," said Nemo, "I am sorry I have dragged you both into this."

"Don't worry about it, Nemo." said Priest, "But what are we supposed to do now?"

"You've fulfilled your end of the bargain. You are free to go if you choose and I'll compensate you soon. But I think it is better if you allow me to extend you the courtesy of helping you out of the country and getting you to safety."

"Sounds good to me." said Mona, "Priest?"

"Yeah, cool. Is the Yellow Submarine near the isles, by any chance?"

"No, I'll arrange other transport. I need you both to get to Liverpool and remain in the Red Ox Inn. A man will get in touch with you; he will claim to be called Jumping Jack Flash. You will follow his orders and he will lead you to safety. Understood?"

"Yeah, got it." said Priest looking at the drawn curtains as the sunlight landed on them from the outside.

"Get rid of this phone and move out. Good luck."

* * *

_Off the coast of Okinawa, Japan_

Nemo banged on the buttons of his console almost franticly, and in a matter of seconds Captain Raimus appeared on the screen.

"Good morning, Captain. What is the matter?"

"Exodus."

"What?!"

"Sands' division has been wiped out, some perhaps detained, some surely killed. They've raided his apartment and stole all his files, they know where all our Agents are, and we need to pull everyone out quick!"

"Agreed."

"What's the situation on MacGuffin."

"My men are already in Qumar, they were going to wait till nighttime to strike, but I guess that we'll have to move sooner."

"Yes, hit the prison hard and fast and without mercy. I will take care of Carcass. Godspeed, Captain."

Raimus signed off, Nemo then contacted Barbossa who appeared on the screen, Pirate Jenny in the background.

"There's no time to Explain, Hector. Most communications are down; we've initiated Exodus and are pulling out all Agents."

"Shit." cursed Barbossa, "I'm in position, I can have both Berlin and Paris cleaned up in the matter of a day, provided they're still alive."

"When you're done, I need you to head to Liverpool and pick up Mason; he'll have my men too."

"Done."

Nemo then contacted Mason.

"Jack, procedure Exodus is underway. Intelligence is out. I repeat, Intelligence is out. Coms are reduced to the top level."

"Dear god, how?"

"No time to explain. Can you take care of New York?"

"Yes, I can contact them; someone else has to pick them up. I'm in Glasgow."

"I'll take care of that. I need you to get to the Red Ox Inn in Liverpool, meet with Priest and Sax who will be under the alias Howl. Introduce yourself as Jumping Jack Flash. Barbossa will handle your pickup, coordinate with him."

"Done."

"After all cells are either rescued or found to be dead. We'll meet in the Island."

* * *

**Three Hours Earlier**

_Paris, France_

"What's the status, Commander?"

Commander Niemans pressed the button on his receiver and spoke into the mouthpiece as he watched his men wrap the bodies in tarps and swiftly move them into the car.

"We got most of them."

"Most of them?"

"Yes, Nikopol escaped. He was shot and he's on foot, so he won't be making any great escapes. I give him thirty minutes before he's either dead or captured. Al in all, it is safe to say that the Opposition's cell in Paris has been destroyed."

* * *

**Two Hours Ago**

_Berlin, Germany_

Lucy Wagner woke up, finding herself covered in cold sweat, heart filled with panic.

She sat up in bed, taking in deep breaths; she closed her eyes and counted to twenty to calm her down. She wondered what was going on, why did she feel so scared all of a sudden.

Lucy got out of bed and walked over to the window. She pulled the curtains aside and looked out at the street below. Metzger's car wasn't outside, he and others had left in the evening to tend to some business that did not require her presence, nor did need the man in the closet.

Looking out, she could see that it was the early hours of the morning, around an hour away from sunrise. Metzger and the boys should have been home by now.

Again, the panic in her rose, her instincts telling her that she had to get out of there at once, and run away as fast as possible. The pressure grew too unbearable, she franticly got dressed and picked up her purse and bolted out of her room, picking up her coat from the rack and putting it on as she bolted out of the door.

As soon as she stepped out she was met with a powerful shove that sent her back in, falling down on her backside.

They were League operatives, six of them, heavily armed. One of them was an Austrian, another had a drug habit, and another was taking drugs to treat his manic depression.

She knew all that before the first one of them got into the apartment from the darkness outside and turned on the lights.

"Lucy Wagner," said one of them calmly as he sauntered in, while two aimed their guns at her as the other three stood guard outside.

"If our files on you are correct, you are a psychic. The files however say nothing of the exact extent of your abilities, so you may already know what I'm about to say."

The man leaned down viciously and grabbed her hair in his fist and pulled violently, forcing her to her knees as she yelped in pain.

"Metzger is dead; I shot him twice in the neck. Your other associates are being interrogated as we speak.

The man slapped her hard in the face.

"You have no one to protect you, you have no exit, you have no choice but two; die painfully or tell us everything you know and perhaps live for a few years, helping us eradicate what's left of the opposition, that is if there is any of it remaining after today. Who knows, maybe they'll let you go after that, they might even get you a job.

"You can start by telling us about your partner," said the man as he gestured for two of the men standing outside to enter, "Your partners were eager to tell us there is another man here, though they strangely don't know his name. They say they're not even allowed to see him. Who is he?"

"You..You want to know what his name is?" asked Lucy with a trembling voice.

"Yes."

"His name is Kroenen."

"Men... search the apartment for this 'Kroenen'."

Lucy then closed her eyes, her mind calling for the one man who could save her; the man in the closet.

She called for Kroenen.

* * *

**Next Chapter:** It's the season finale! Kroenen does what Kroenen does best(or worst, depends how you look at it), and Father MacKenzie reveals who he really is; about the last person you ever expect to become a Priest.

Read & Review, or Costas will shoot you.


	60. Why I left

All dialog in Italics is translated.

* * *

**Now**

_Berlin, Germany_

Lucy closed her eyes tight, breathing calmly, she didn't flinch when the warm, sticky fluid sprayed into her hair. She shut away all the sounds around her as she kneeled on the cold floor of that apartment in Berlin at the crack of dawn, all the screaming, the pleas for mercy, the sounds of shattering bones and slicing flesh, the sound of blood splatter and blades slicing through air, the sounds of death. And when it was all over and the last thud was heard, Lucy opened her eyes and looked up, trying hard as she could not to set her sight on the floor.

Her eyes fell on Kroenen, standing tall and powerful, cloaked in black from top to bottom, blood dripping from the bladed tonfas he held in each hand, like some arcane demon of death and vengeance. Beyond the absolutely impenetrable gas mask he wore, she could see his dead eyes burning with evil.

Lucy got up to her feet and walked towards the door, pulling up the hood of her jacket to conceal the blood. She stood at the threshold and reached down, still looking upward, to pick out a set of car keys from where she knew they were, before straightening up and walking out the door and down the corridor. Kroenen soon followed.

* * *

**Two Days Later**

_Liverpool, England_

Mona woke up as the thunder stopped booming. It took her a few seconds to remember where she was and what she was doing there.

She sat up; annoyed at how cold it got, though it seemed to have stopped raining. A chil ran through her body as her bare feet touched the cold wooden floor. She reached to the chair where her clothes were dropped and put them on before walking out of the room and heading to the kitchen window.

She opened the window and peaked out. Priest was sitting on the fire escape, bare footed, shirt unbuttoned and looking to be in a grim mood.

"It's been two days, Mona," said Priest as he took a drag of cigarette smoke, "We should get out while we still can. I don't think _Jumping Jack Flash_ is ever showing up."

"We have to wait."

"The longer the wait the closer the League'll get to catching us... I've decided to leave, I already made my preparations."

"So you're just going to bail?"

"Pretty much. I'm leaving to Dublin tomorrow, as soon as the sun goes down. I think I'll be laying low for a year or so in somewhere quiet, like Belfast. You can come, kiddo. Shaun too."

"Let's just wait until tomorrow."

"Uhuh."

Mona crawled out onto the fire-escape and crouched next to Priest.

"I'm worried about Shaun, I think he's suicidal."

"Do you, now?"

"Remember how he asked us to get back to the bar when we left Sands' place and he got back in to get that Winchester he had above the bar? Well I found him playing with it last night, if I hadn't deactivated it he'd probably have blown his brains out."

"I don't know if I'm going to be any help, heart to hearts aren't my thing."

"Come on, do it for me."

"What can't you do it yourself?"

"You're a guy, he might respond better to you."

"He's not going to respond to either one of us, Mona." said Priest and stood up, lighting a fresh cigarette.

"They brutally murdered his wife. Mona, we're a pair of professional killers but you gotta admit even we were hit by a brick wall when we saw what they did to her, and we barely even met her... Now imagine how the guy feels; the love of his life taken away so savagely, by people he knows nothing about, because of a superficial association he had with a gang of people he barely knew... I wouldn't be surprised if he was planning to use that Winchester on us."

Mona exhaled.

"I'm calling in a favor."

"You're what?"

"I saved your ass three times, Priest; on that boat in Gotham harbor, in that train station after you crossed Josephine and on that ship in Liverpool. I think you owe me, wouldn't you agree?"

Priest curled his lips in disdain.

"You... So that's the way it's gonna be, huh?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Well step aside, little lady. I'm coming in."

* * *

"Shaun..." started Priest as he walked into the hall where Shaun sat on a couch, the old lay Winchester on the coffee table before him, "How are you, Shaun?"

"Surviving." said Shaun, his voice raw with grief.

"Shaun, we need to talk." said Priest after a beat as sat on an armchair.

"About?"

"We're leaving, Shaun. It's been two days already, Jack Flash; our contact was supposed to have come by now. By tomorrow night, I'm leaving for Dublin. I want you to come with me."

"Why?"

"It's not safe for you here."

"No, I suppose it isn't. You can count me in."

"Oh, that's great."

There was then awkward silence, which Priest desperately tried to think of something to break the silence with.

"Anything else, Priest?"

"Err... Look, Mona's worried about you. She's thinks you might top yourself, to tell you the truth, so am I. It's a terrible affair that's happened to you and I've know many who have punched out for less."

"Four years ago my best friend," started Shaun and paused to collect his thoughts, "My flatmate, my mum and my step-dad turned into these hideous things, these monsters that were going to kill me. I had to shoot my flatmate, and a minute before that I had to shoot my mum; I blew her brains our with this very gun I'm holding."

"Shit..." cursed Priest, his eyes wide with disbelief.

"I did it all to survive, with Liz at my side. In a sort of morbidly finny way, it was the day we realized we were meant to each other. Most couples think its them against the world, but unlike everyone else, our wasn't a cliché.

"Liz would've had wanted me to live, she would've wanted me to go on. And I'll do just that. And you know what? I still think its me and her against the world."

"Hem... I'm sorry, I think there's something in my eye... Liz seemed like a great woman, Shaun. I'm sorry I only met her that once. Can you tell me more about her?"

"She taught English Lit for 12th year. We met in Greece, ten years ago... She was pregnant. I don't mean in Greece, I mean recently."

"Oh. I'm... I'm very sorry, Shaun. Fuck, I had no idea."

"Never mind."

"No, really. I'm sorry I-"

"You bringing up the subject isn't worse'n that it happened, is it? Just forget it. I'm sorry I'm not doing a great job about telling you about her, maybe some other time... You know, I think she would've liked you, Mona too."

"That has to be the best complement I heard in some time." said Priest, "Do you fancy a drink? I can get Mona to nip out for a bottle or something."

"I'm not in the mood, but thanks. So, do you have a wife or anything?"

"I was married once, that was a long time ago."

"I'm sorry. She died?"

"Nah. To tell you the truth, I haven't the faintest idea where she is. Actually we were never divorced, so I guess I **am** married... Bloody hell! I've been married al these years and it seems to have slipped my mind. Uncanny."

"What happened?"

Priest looked away at the sky outside and seemed in the process of recollecting distant and unsavory memories.

"Well... there hangs a tale."

* * *

**1780**

_Glenfinnan, Scotland_

The gate to the castle closed behind as one of the castle's masters rode in on a massive stead, black as the night and as fierce as could be.

The warrior the rode in dismounted, he wasn't a big man, but those who knew him knew that words such as vicious and cruel failed to precisely describe him. He was cloaked in black from top to bottom, and in his hand he held a massive scythe, dripping with the blood of his victims during the morning raid against the uprising MacLeods and their ilk.

"Chupa." growled the knight as he took the man who had come in with him, a big man also dressed entirely in black armor and was missing a leg.

The one-legged man groaned as he hit the ground, then took off his leather helmet, seeing as how he was safely within the confines of the darkened castle, revealing a hardened face encircled with blonde hair and a thick beard.

_"You were shoddy at battle today."_ said the warrior as he tossed his bloodied scythe aside, _"It's unbelievable that you didn't end up a pile of ash."_

_"Yes, Master Judas. I am sorry."_

_"You apologies are useless, Chupa!... Get to feeding soon, you'll have to grow that leg of yours in a hurry... Now, I must go see my wife."_

Judas Priest removed his own helmet, and then took off the rag holding his raven black beard and hair as he started walking towards his own quarters.

_"No!"_ yelled Chupa, _"I mean wait, Master!"_

_"Chupa, if you want me to toss you out to the MacLeods, keep talking."_

Chupa fell silent.

* * *

Judas grew uneasy as he approached his quarters, as from down the hall he could hear the sound of panting and moans of contained pleasure.

The door soon was kicked open. The two gyrating bodies stopped in stunned surprise, and both looked up at the sudden intruder.

_"Erika,"_ growled Judas, _"Grigori... I hope I'm not interrupting."_

_"Damn..."_ cursed Grigori as he moved away from Erika and sat at the edge of the bed, trying to put his clothes on, _"You're early, Judas."_

_"That's what you have to say?"_ asked Judas, as he started removing the armor from his chest and the leather gloves from his arms.

_"Judas, please!"_ cried Erika as she sat up, lifting the sheets to cover her body.

_"Please what? 'Please have mercy?' Do you have any idea who you're talking to?"_

_"This doesn't have to be like this, Judas."_ said Grigori as he put on hid boots, _"We should talk."_

_"Talk? You!? My own brother, me own flesh and blood! In my bed fucking my wife! While I am out there while the sun is up, fighting for all of us?! I WILL KILL YOU!"_

Judas lunged at Grigori who couldn't match his elder brothers' speed and found himself being struck with a blow that sent him flying backwards and slamming into a wall.

_"Erika!"_ yelled Grigori, his moth filled with blood, _"Run!"_

_"Yes, Erika! Do as your lover tells you!"_ Judas said as he shot his fist into Grigori's jaw, knocking out a tooth, _"You rek of your spendings, there's no where in this castle where I won't find you. And unless you plan on taking your chances with the sun, you have no escape."_

Grigori retaliated with blocking a punch and sending Judas reeling back with a punch of his own, before lunging at him with his hand to his neck. His dominance was short lived as Judas kicked him in the groin, forcing him to relinquish his grasp, then went on to sweep his legs with a kick sending him off his feet.

"_That's why your servant Chupa has been sticking to me like a shadow all those times, isn't it? To hold me back from finding the bastard pair of you?"_ asked Judas as he picked up Grigori's foot and wrenched it out of its sockets with one powerful motion.

_"AAAAAAAAA!!! FATHER!"_

_"Shut it!"_ barked Judas, _"Swine! This is between you and I, we'll settle it as me-"_

Powerful claw-like hands grasped Judas' shoulders, and then hurled him across the room, sending him crashing into a wall.

Judas looked up to see his father Abraxas Priest, a robe of black silk wrapped around his tall and thin figure and his extremely long black beard covering his chest.

"Father..." growled Judas, "This doesn't concern you."

Abraxas' eyes seemed to glimmer as he set his gaze upon his younger son and commanded with a blood curdling voice, _"Grigori. Leave."_

Grigori got up and hobbled out of the chamber, as Judas straightened up and wiped the blood from his lip.

_"Stand aside, old man."_ Judas barked as he went to leave in pursuit of either unfaithful wife or treacherous brother.

_"You will do neither of them harm, Judas."_ said Abraxas as he wrapped the hardest fingers around Judas' forearm.

_"You knew, didn't you?"_ asked Judas as he tried to slither out of his father's grasp, to no avail, _"DIDN'T YOU?"_

_"Grigori did as he did because he is such an obedient son."_

_"What?... Wait, you..."_

_"I told him to bed your wife."_

Judas fell silent for a second, before his anger overcame him and he tried to wrap the fingers of his free hand against his father's throat. Seemingly without a single move, Abraxas sent his son flying back into the wall.

_"You told him?"_ asked Judas as he got up, _"For more than one hundred years I've did what you told me to; I've killed, maimed, plundered and ravaged who and whatever you told me to, and this is what I get?"_

Once again, Judas went to attack his father. He leapt through the air, determined to rip his father's throat open with his very teeth.

A split-second before Judas had the old man in his grasp, Abraxas simply vanished and reappeared behind his son and seized him by the arm, twisting it violently as he shoved him against a wall, causing Judas immense pain.

_"Yes you have, my son."_ whispered Abraxas into Judas' ear, _"As have you brother. The two of you are as good a progeny as a man can desire. You have served me both as well as you could and as well as I needed."_

_"So why did you do it?"_

_"Serving me is your purpose. Serving me is your destiny. Serving me is the only reason I sired you two. I owe neither of you anything."_

_"WHY?"_ asked Judas as he gritted his teeth in pain.

Abraxas pulled Judas' arm violently, nearly tearing it out of his shoulder and pulling it out of its socket. Judas screamed.

_"Because part of your purpose is to provide me with further servants, every bit as loyal and able as you, not to mention that my alliance with the house of __Ördögház__ depends on a child born of their and our blood."_

_"Th..That's it?"_ asked Judas with a chuckle as he stopped screaming, _"You want t be a grandfather?"_

"_You have been wed to Erika for five years, and so far you've failed to wholly fulfill your purpose. And so, Grigori must redeem your failings."_

_"You're a heap of dog bile, Abraxas!"_

Abraxas dug his fingers deep into Judas' flesh and then started tearing arm off, as slow as he could, reveling in every second of Judas' screams.

The arm came off at the end, and burned up in blistering ash in Abraxas' hand. Abraxas then took hold of Judas by the throat.

_"You will not harm your brother or your wife. You will not speak of this anymore. You will serve me."_

Abraxas then tossed Judas as if he was a rag doll, sending him crashing into his and his wife's bed, still warm from her betrayal.

_"You will obey me."_

* * *

**Now**

_Liverpool, England_

"I didn't. I just sat in that bed for hours and hours, till I knew that the sun had gone down. I snuck out, making sure not even the lowest of servants saw me and headed due East." said Priest as he looked out at the darkening sky outside.

"That was as low as I ever felt."

"Christ..." said Shaun, "Betrayed by your family because you were impotent."

"Hey! I am **NOT** Impotent!"

"I..."

"It was Erika, **she** was sterile. There's northing wrong with my virility. I have moves the likes of which you have never seen! Too bad Veronica Lake is dead, because she would have told you so!"

"I'm sorry. I... Heh. Sorry."

"Yeah, better believe it."

"So, you just left?"

"Yeah."

"You never returned?"

" I haven't even been in Scotland since then."

"Christ... Do you ever think about returning?"

"There's no one to return to."

"How come?"

"My father, may he burn in hell if there is such a place, was killed ten years later by the Vampire slayer..."

"Vampire slayer?"

"Yeah, I'll tell you later. Grigori became the master of the Clan Priest, and did a royal ob of fucking it up; after a year he had lost all power and the villagers were sharpening their pitchforks and preparing for a revolt to end all revolts. So he gathered what remained of his men and the family fortune and fucked off to Eastern Europe.

"No, I never returned. But I once thought about it, that was in 1909. I spent the next three years in London trying to work up the courage to make my way home. I didn't know they were all gone at the time, of course. One day I decided to try America instead, took the Titanic over.

"It was only months ago that I learned what happened to Grigori. A vampire-hunter told me that an associate of hers watched as he died in the back of some vampire nightclub in Prague. I celebrated by sleeping with said woman, she was very satisfied which goes to prove that I am **not** impotent. The downside is that her boyfriend tried to kill me for a few months after that. The guy who stopped the boyfriend from finding me is the guy who brought me into this whole operation. The rest is history."

"What about Erika?"

"I don't know. Probably returned to her people in Hungary."

"Do you ever think about finding her?"

"Sometimes, but there's no point. The thing is; I'm not entirely the victim in this situation. I was a rubbish husband, you see. I never loved her, and looking back I realize that I treated her badly."

"I see... So, you slept with Veronica Lake, eh?"

There then was a knock on the door. Priest stood up and buttoned his shirt as he went to answer.

"Get Mona, and yes."

* * *

Aheh. That's one more chapter out of the way. I know I promised this would be the last but the thing is it ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would be. Anyway, I hope you like it. 

**Next Chapter:** The Season Finale! I swear! Father MacKenzie and everything.

I'll post it as soon as possible, It's written already. So R&R.


	61. Season Finale

**Now**

_Liverpool, England_

Priest opened the door to see a tall man of his seventies standing outside, wearing a suit, hat and raincoat.

"Mister Howl?"

"Yeah, what can I do you for, gov'nor?"

"I'm Jumping Jack Flash."

"Sorry, who?"

"Jumping Jack Flash, mister Priest. I'm a friend of Nemo's."

"Right, I'm just pulling your leg. I'll tell you one thing; you took your bloody time getting here."

"I had to make sure there was no League presence. May I come in?"

Priest stepped aside and said nothing. Mason walked in just as Mona walked out of her room.

"Hello, Jack." said Shaun.

"Hello, Shaun." said Mason uneasily.

"So, you two already know each other. Wait... Jack Flash is your real name?!"

"Actually it's John Mason, my friend call me Jack." said Mason, "Miss Sax, Mister Priest, may I have a word with you two outside?"

* * *

"Where do you know Shaun from?" asked Priest as Mona closed the door as the three of them stood in the corridor outside.

"I have visited the Winchester a few times, as did Nemo."

"Right. So you know about what happened to him, eh?"

"Of course it is. Look, he can't come with us."

"Why?"

"He is not one of us; he's not a member of the opposition."

"Wait, you held meetings in his bar, didn't you?" asked Mona.

"Yes. Look, Shaun is a decent young man, what happened to him is such a travesty. But we are leaving for a classified location that we can't afford the League finding out about when we return."

"Are we? Well, seeing as how the League killed his wife and left him to die, I doubt he'll be running to tell them the first chance he gets."

"What if he gets caught? Look, I know people; people who can get Shaun to safety and arrange for him to start a new life. Shaun will be taken care of, but he can't come with us."

"Look, mate." barked Priest, "First of all; Mona and I aren't fucking members of the opposition, we're only doing what we're doing for the money. Shaun on the other hand, is the most stand up fellow I've met that has anything to do with you lot, and you're going to leave **him** behind?"

"Mister Priest..."

"I'm going to Dublin."

"What?"

"If Shaun doesn't go, I'll stay back to protect him, as long as it takes." said Priest as he turned his back to Mason, "Mona, I guess this is goodbye. Step aside, will you luv?"

"It isn't goodbye." said Mona.

"So you're coming with us?" asked Priest with a smile.

"Hell yeah."

"Alright," said Mason, "You win. He can come."

"Good."

"But he'll be your charge, Priest! Your lives are now intertwined."

"I'm saving the guy, I'm not marrying him."

Mason went to leave as he said, "I'll go fetch my men; we'll meet within the hour at the port of Liverpool dock 42."

"Your men?"

"Yes," said Mason, "There were a few affairs to be handled in London. While I was there I found out that two of Sands' men had survived, they were out at the time of the League's raid."

* * *

**Two Days Ago**

_The Arabian Gulf_

"How's the leg?" asked Captain Raimus as he approached Sayid, who sat on a bed in the Red October's infirmary with his left leg getting bandaged up.

"'Hurts. This isn't the first time I've been shot." said Sayid, "Has the prisoner woke?"

Only hours ago, the Cairo cell of the opposition had launched assault on the prison mentioned in Bond's papers, after learning that that is where a man suspected to be MacGuffin was being held. Sayid had managed to sneak in and cause in explosion, amid all the panic that ensued Aisha had broke in and within a minute managed to locate MacGuffin. Almasry provided cover fire as they escaped, they were unscathed except for Sayid who caught a bullet in the leg seconds before they flew away in a leased helicopter piloted by Barnes. The prisoner resisted at first, which prompted Aisha to knock him out.

"Yes. He's denying that he's MacGuffin."

"You sound very sure that he's lying, Captain."

"I am."

"Is the intelligence we've received that reliable?"

"Yes. The prison in question was mentioned in James Bond's papers. MacGuffin being in Qumar has been confirmed by the very man who caught him."

"And who found all that out?"

"You'll get to meet them soon enough."

"And where are we going?"

"An isolated island. All surviving members of the opposition will be gathered there. In all the decades that the opposition has existed, this will be the first time all of us have been in the same place."

"I see."

"Well," said Raimus as he turned to leave, "I better leave you to recover."

"Captain." called Sayid.

"Yes, Lieutenant?"

"What about Aladdin?"

Raimus hung his head as he said, "Aladdin has been analyzed by a trained psychiatrist for several weeks. Unfortunately, he seems to have been permanently driven mad."

* * *

**Now**

_Liverpool, England_

Will Hunting, Forrest Gump Jr., Jack Mason, Shaun, Mona and Priest all stood side by side as the submarine rose from the waters, like an ancient black leviathan.

"Did the Yellow Submarine get a paintjob?" asked Mona, "Or is this not Nemo?"

"Nemo couldn't get here fast enough. Captain Brabossa will take us all to meet Nemo."

A loading gate opened, revealing Jenny standing behind.

"Jenny, it's nice to finally see you again."

"It's great to see you too. Hector is waiting for all of you inside... Well, what are you waiting for? Get in, and welcome to the Black Pearl."

* * *

**Next Day**

_Doomstadt, Latveria_

"So everybody is gone, then?" asked Mashu as he held his cell phone to his ear as he stood at the cathedrals steps.

"Yes," said Mernae on the other line, "Well, not everyone. Just the one Sands kept in his records. That excludes both of us, meaning the League won't be coming after us."

"Yeah, I got that. Are you okay? Where are you?"

"Mumbai. I'm freaking out a bit. But I'll be okay, I suppose. Will you be okay? I know you don't like your job very much, I hope you're coping."

"Yeah, I'm fine. Actually, I'm starting to like it."

"That's great. Look, I have to go, alright?"

"Yeah. Bye."

"Goodbye."

Mashu hung up his phone and dropped it into his pocket, just as a gray van pulled in front of the church. The driver turned off the engine and got out. It was Father Mackenzie. Mashu hurried to help the young priest.

"John, you're here already!" said Mackenzie cheerfully as he opened the back of the van and started to take out a few boxes.

"Yes I am, Father. I promised I'd help you with the charity dinner."

"Indeed you did. You're a good man, John. May the lord bless and protect you."

"Yeah. Look," said Mashu as he picked up a couple of boxes and followed Mackenzie as he walked to the church doors.

"It's about time I came clean, Father. I told you my name was John Gray, you know that was a lie."

"Yes I did."

"Yeah, well, my real name is Mashu, Mashu O'Shaughnessy."

"I appreciate your candor, Mashu." said the priest as pushed the doors to the church open with his back.

"My real name is **Dorian**."

* * *

**End of Season One

* * *

R&R.**

R&R.


	62. Anotations and notes on Chapter 34 to 61

**Chapter 34:**

-Captain Nemo visits Club Midnite, the demons and angels nightclub from CONSTANTINE.

-The Platinum haired man in the duster is Spike, from Buffy and Angel.

-Michael Corvin is the protagonist from the UNDERWORLD films. Here he is using the name of his Hungarian ancestors.

-After faking his death, Priest has been living under the alias of George Kaplan. George Kaplan is the name of the "phantom spy" from Alfred Hitchcock's NORTH BY NORTHWEST.

-Mernae Watts refers to a magician named Harry, get it?

-Bill Tanner is M's chief of staff from the 007 films and novels.

-Arlington Beach is an alias of James Bond, meaning that Priest and Bond have already met during the sixties, neither knows of the other's real identity.

**Chapter 35:**

-George Spiggot is the Devil's pseudonym in BEDAZZELED, the 1960s version where he as played by Peter Cooke.

-The three dogs are supposed to symbolize Kerberos, the three-headed hell-hound of Greek mythology.

-The nine windows to the nine rooms represent the nine circles of Hell in Dante's Inferno.

-The nine rooms are the offices of Satan and seven personification of each of the deadly sins. The ninth room is a restroom.

-The idea of personification of the seven sins is borrowed from BEDAZZELED.

-"Please allow me to formally introduce myself, George Spiggot. Pleased to meet you, hope you don't forget my name." The line, as well as the chapter's title is a reference to the Rolling Stones' _Sympathy for the Devil_.

-The Devil offers Nemo seven wishes in exchange for his soul. Another reference to BEDAZZELED, as is referring to the signer as 'The Damned'.

-Spiggot says that the personification of Greed is his attorney, an obvious joke and reference to BEDAZZELED.

-The signing of the contract with blood is the most prominent point of the Faustian deal.

-If you notice, Nemo has been transported to the East London Docks, former home of Dorian Gray, who also gave up his soul for immortality.

**Chapter 36:**

-Judas Priest flies to London aboard an Oceanic Airlines flight. Oceanic is a fictional airline appearing in various films and whatnot, such as the TV series Lost.

-The Winchester Tavern is from SHAUN OF THE DEAD. It has been taken over by Shaun, and paid for by the opposition in exchange for using it as an occasional meeting place.

-Marmaduke is the Great Dane from the eponymous newspaper cartoon strip.

-Sheldon Jeffrey Sands is from Robert Rodriguez's ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO.

-Mister Stuart is a descendant of one of the reform club members from Jules Verne's _Around the world in 80 Days_.

**Chapter 37:**

-Some foretelling of Phoenix's apocalyptic nature.

-Frank Costello is Jack Nicholson's character from THE DEPARTED. Priest, being a freelance mobster would know him.

-Bond's ex-wife and her death are from ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE. As I've told you all before, the Bond I'm using here is both the Sean Connery and the George Lazenby Bonds. Which puts OHMSS as the end of the Bond cannon taken into account for this story.

**Chapter 38:**

-Hatori Hanzo is from KILL BILL.

-If you didn't notice, Nemo and Gaum-Ja had sex on New Year's Eve.

-Big Chris Jones is from LOCK, STOCK & TWO SMOKING BARRELS.

-The Stoke Park Club, the King and his men are all from LAYER CAKE. _The King_ was played by Daniel Craig and never referred to by name. His moniker here is taken from a line given by one of his lieutenants late in the film.

**Chapter 39:**

-Little Chris Jones is from LOCK, STOCK & TWO SMOKING BARRELS.

-Alistair Harper is a character from Alan Moore's original V for Vendetta.

**Chapter 40:**

-The man who won't die is an Immortal from the clan MacLeod, related to Connor and Duncan from the Highlander series.

-Valkyr is a fictional drug from the first MAX PAYNE video game.

-Bennu is a name for a Phoenix.

-You should notice here that Bennu's later name; Substance B, as well as its derivative Substance C seem to be leading towards Substance D, the drug featured in Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly.

**Chapter 41:**

-Nostalgia is a fictional perfume from Alan Moore's Watchmen.

**Chapter 42:**

-The local Scottish Mafia Captain in London is Far Bastard, from the AUSTIN POWERS movies.

-The Boss of all the Scottish Mafia is Macbeth, who resides in Glasgow.

-Priest's early history is given here. His father was named Abraxas Priest, though Priest isn't probably his real name. Priest's Brother is Grigori Priest, meant to be the vampire from BLADEII who was called Priest. Abraxas is a pagan underworld deity. Priest's later history is yet unrevealed, it is unknown why he left his former life as a warlord.

**Chapter 43:**

-Priest mentions meeting Bob Dylan in the sixties. In our Universe, Bob Dylan wrote the song 'The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest' which I used as part of Priest's history. It tells the story of Priest and Lee's antics that end in the death of Frank Lee.

**Chapter 45:**

-The title of the chapter refers to that saying 'Revenge is a Dish best Served Cold'. MacLeod's revenge is long overdue.

-In the Highlander series, all Immortal are sterile as Priest says.

**Chapter 46:**

-According to the Highlander franchise, Immortals may not fight over any sort of Holy Land. Though Priest isn't of the same kind of Immortals as MacLeod, he's still immortal.

-Hyde Park being an ancient pagan worship ground is as far as I know, completely cooked up by me.

-Cthulhu is the fictional diety from the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

-Crom is from the Conan Series.

-Captain Teague is Jack Sparrow's father in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series. The quote he says here in said in AT WORLD'S END.

-The scene where Priest forces MacLeod to make a choice is meant to allude to a scene in the first Pirates movie where Sparrow asks Will Turner if he can sail with a Pirate.

-Liz is Shaun's girlfriend from SHAUN OF THE DEAD.

-A Vesper is a drink invented by James Bond.

-Doug the Head and Avi Gellar are from SNATCH.

**Chapter 47:**

-Liberty City, Vice City and Tommy Vercetti are from the GTA video game series.

-John Wesley Harding is the name of the Bob Dylan album in which 'The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest' is featured.

**Chapter 49:**

-Father Patrick Mackenzie is named after a character in the Beatles song Eleanor Rigby.

-Sergei Yurinov is meant to be Boris the Blade's brother, from SNATCH.

-Tony Soprano who once tried to kill Judas Priest is from the HBO series The Sopranos.

-Captain Ricardo Tibbs is from the TV series Miami Vice.

**Chapter 52:**

-Wayne refers to his time as a petty criminal in the Beginning of BATMAN BEGINS.

**Chapter 53:**

-The psychiatrist in this chapter was originally going to be Niles Crane from Frasier. Thus the Frasier-esque pun in the title.

-Doctor Hannibal Lecter is the well known character from the Novels and Films Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal and Hannibal Rising.

-Orlando is a character from the League comic book, encompassing several Orlandos including the one by Virginia Wolf. An omni-sexual Immortal adventurer.

-Orlando's comments regarding liquor are a reference to prohibition that was at the scene's time (1933) was in its last days.

-Indiana Jones is from the eponymous film series.

-Jimmy Christopher, The Shadow, Doc Savage are pulp magazine characters from the thirties.

-Sky Captain is from that movie.

**Chapter 54:**

-The monkey in question is Jack, the capuchin from the POTC film series.

-Pirate Jenny Diver is from Kurt Weil and Bertolt Brecht's threepenny opera. In which she is a maid in a hotel that fantasizes about the day a black freighter (i.e. The Black Pearl) arrives to her rescue when she will have vengeance upon her abusive masters.

-The whole history with Jack Sparrow and Barbossa regarding the fountain of youth is a reference to the 3rd Pirates movie.

-In case you're wondering, Jack Sparrow WILL appears eventually. Along with members of his Black Pearl crew.

**Chapter 55:**

-Cate and James Bond's son is named Andrew, after James' father.

-Deputy Director Emma Peel is from THE AVENGERS.

-The reason why Jack Mason and James Bond look alike is that both were played by Sean Connery.

-Tommy Vercetti was killed shortly after Mona released him. Who did it will be revealed early in Season 2.

-Michael Costas is James Bond's bodyguard, naturally George Costas' older brother.

**Chapter 56:**

-The seemingly insane cab driver is the Protagonist of the TAXI film series.

-Moses Schmidt aka Muhammad is from MONSIEUR IBRAHIM.

-"Allez we go." is an intentionally bad pun. Allez means going or something, I'm not sure. It rhymes with Away, "Away we Go - Allez we go."

-The Moulin Rouge is an actual theatre and cabaret in Paris. The version I'm using is from the Baz Luhrman movie, in it is bought up by an English Duke. The theory is that following the film's climax the duke vindictively changes it into a hotel and boots out the bohemian artists.

-One of the people who watch Priest as he fakes a seizure is Robert Langdon, the protagonist from those frankly awful Dan Brown novels.

-Priest, being a vampire with no heart beat, has to continuously shock himself with a tazer gun to produce a faint heartbeat. There is a goof, as a young woman checks his pulse without getting electrocuted herself.

-The man who helps Priest up is an older and promoted version of the Inspector from the Pink Panther movies, who has sent many people to hospitals in his time.

**Chapter 57:**

-The title is a song by the Clash.

-Priest has lived in the Moulin Rouge before. In one draft of this chapter I also mentioned that he met the Phantom of the Opera and was at one point disguised as a Narcoleptic Argentinean Thespian. The Narcoleptic Argentinean is from Baz Luhrman's MOULIN ROUGE!, as is the tale of Christian and Satine.

-Sir Austin Danger Powers is from the AUSTIN POWERS series.

**Chapter 58:**

-Austin Power's brother Dougie is more commonly known as Dr. Evil.

-Upon arriving in the pub and seeing the carnage in the backroom Priest says "Fubar". Fubar is an old unofficial US army acronym that stands for "**F**ucked **u**p **b**eyond **a**ll **r**ecognition."

-Sands' residence is at 222B Baker Street, which is next door to Sherlock Holmes' former residence.

**Chapter 59:**

-Alexander Nikopol is the ancestor of Alceid Nikopol from Enki Bilal's IMMORTAL (AD VITAM).

-Kroenen is the Nazi cyborg from HELLBOY, now press ganged into doing the opposition's bidding.

**Chapter 60:**

-Erika Priest is actually Erika from the first UNDERWORLD movie.

-Chupa is the vampire Priest's(here named Grigori) best friend in BLADE II.

-In chapter 2, it is revealed that Nemo got Priest to work for him by disposing of a vampire hunter that was in pursuit of Priest. Here the details are elaborated a bit.

_"It was only months ago that I learned what happened to Grigori. A __**vampire-hunter **__told me that an __**associate**__ of hers watched as he died in the back of some vampire nightclub in Prague. I celebrated by sleeping with said woman, she was very satisfied which goes to prove that I am NOT impotent. The downside is that her __**boyfriend**__ tried to kill me for a few months after that. The guy who stopped her boyfriend from finding me is the guy who brought me into this whole operation, the rest is history."_

The Vampire hunter is Abigail Whistler. Her associate is Blade. Her boyfriend is Hannibal King. All are from the Blade trilogy, particularly the third movie.

**Chapter 61:**

-Father Mackenzie, if you missed it, is actually none other than Dorian Gray.

* * *

_Cheers. __Jack Borroughs._


	63. Project EcksMass

**December 25th, 1983**

**London, England**

**Shaun Collier** woke up from his sleep as he heard something downstairs. He got out of bed and sleepily walked out of his room and towards the stairs; he hugged himself for warmth, feeling curiosity and intimidation as he heard further faint noises coming from the living room downstairs.

There was a man by the fireplace, sitting on his father's armchair eating some cookies and drinking from a glass of milk, cheerfully humming to himself.

"Dad?" asked young Shaun, "Issat you?"

"Aaah! Oh. Ho ho ho!" said the Stranger as he set down the glass and the plate and got up, his boots pressed against the carpeting leaving snowy footprints as he made his way to Shaun.

"Young Shaun Collier, you're supposed to be in bed."

"Santa?! Is that you?"

"Indeed it is, Shaun," said the stranger as he leaned, allowing the moonlight coming in from a window to fall upon his face which was red in the cheek and encircles with the softest white beard, "Indeed it is!"

"You're real."

"Of course I am. Why, what did you hear?"

"What were you doing?" asked Shaun.

"I was just enjoying a plate of your mother delllllicious short-bread cookies. Do pass along my complements to Barbara, will you lad?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Awwww. There's a good boy." said St. Nick, brushing the top of Shaun's head, "I've brought you a present."

"Really?"

"Of course I did." said St. Nick cheerfully as he reached into his bag, which had magically appeared next to him and pulled out Shaun's gift.

"A cricket bat." said Shaun as he took the smooth piece of wood in his hand, inspecting it and admiring the shiny polish in awe.

"Aye, it is. That will come in handy in the even of a zombie apocalypse."

"What?!"

"Ho ho ho!" bellowed St. Nick as he straightened up and picked up his bag, then turned around and headed to the fireplace, "You're a good boy, Shaun. Don't ever change. Make sure you take care of your friends and your family, especially your mother. Oh, and keep away from Judas Priest; he's a bad influence."

* * *

**December 25th, 1984**

**Brooklyn, New York**

**Mona Sax** made sure not to wake up her sister Lisa as she snuck out of bed, she tip toed to the door, slightly wincing as the coldness of the wooden floor stung the bottom of her feet. She slowly and carefully turned the knob and pushed the door open, hoping it wouldn't squeak and wake her mother or her sister.

She walked quietly out into the living room, looking in awe at the big, portly man in the red coat who stood near the table by the window, making some chewing noises.

"Santa?"

The man in the red coat flinched, gasped and spun around.

"Aaaah. Ho ho ho ho! You're one sneaky little minx, Mona Sax. Though... Well, this is the second year in a row that a gift recipient has managed to creep up on me. I think I might be loosing my touch."

"Santa? Is that you?"

"But of course it is, my darling Mona! I was just indulging in what you've left out for me... I must say, this is that anyone has left out salted crackers for me, not that I'm complaining. Also, something isn't right with the milk, I'd check the expiration date if I were you."

"Some girls at school said you weren't real."

"Oh, they're wrong. Tell me, Mona; have you been a good girl?"

"I tried."

"You succeeded, my precious child. Though you had every reason to give up and become as selfish and greedy and generally naughty as people more fortunate than yourself unfortunately become, you still were one of the nice. However, I am sorry." said St. Nick, an expression of sadness on his face.

"I'm afraid I have no gifts for you."

"Why not?" asked Mona.

"Tell me, what you want most? I know you know what it is."

"I..." said Mona shyly, "I want dad back, I want home to be like other dads. I don't want him to steal and hurt other people and go away again."

"That's the problem, my sweet Mona; I can't give you that."

"Why not?"

"Free will. Free will is the creator's special gift to all of human kind, and I cannot deny that gift to one creature just to be able to grant a gift to another, even is that other is someone as thoughtful and caring as you. Are you angry at me, Mona?"

Mona hung her head, her eyes filling with tears, and then said "No" with a trembling voice.

"Normally, when a child can't be granted what he or she wishes for the most, or when she or he doesn't want anything at all, I take it upon myself to bring him or her a present of my choosing that I know he or she would appreciate and love. However the problem remains, anything I give you might end up in a pawn shop when your father decides he needs money for a new scam. And so... I've decided to grant you the greatest gift of all."

"What is it?" asked Mona as she wiped her eyes and looked up.

"I'm going you how to throw the best left hook ever! Now, make a little fist, darling... And give me your best shot."

Three minutes and fifteen attempts later, St. Nick was nursing a cut lip.

"Ho ho ho! That hurt much more than I expected!"

"Are you okay, Mister Santa Claus?" asked Mona, shaking her hand to relieve the pain from hitting St. Nick in the jaw so many times.

"Oh, don't worry about me, I'll be fine!" said St. Nick as he got up and walked to the window and opened it, letting in the freezing wind. With much effort and some grunting he squeezed his massive figure through the small hole, somehow managing to make it to the other side where he stood of the fire escape. He peeked his head inside one last time, his mouth spreading into a wide, kind smile.

"You're a good girl, Mona. You will eventually fall into a dark path, you will do some horrible things, but you will find your destiny. You will damn a few but save legions. Take care, sweet little Mona. Take care of your mother and you sister Lisa; she's not as tough and strong as you. Never take shit from anyone, because you're too good for that. Oh, and please, for god's sake; _stay away from Judas Priest!_ He's an evil little runt!"

* * *

**December 25th, 1688**

**County Limerick, Ireland**

**Judas Priest** felt no chill as he walked across the grassy hill, half naked, on his way to his father and brother's tent. Grigori had just turned seven, only a year younger than he. It had been only a month since their mother Lilith was killed by Abraxas in a fit of blind rage. And though young Judas knew it was wrong, he couldn't help but feel lonely.

Strangely, there was something different about the campsite. The fire twenty feet away from the tent was still burning, and he could clearly see what was ten feet beyond it; a sled with six reindeers. There were massive boot prints leading into the tent, and he could the sound of someone moving inside.

Judas feared that it was one of those monks his father told him about, the one that have dedicated themselves to killing their kind. He waited outside at a loss to what to do, until someone exited.

It wasn't a monk, not like any that Judas had seen before. He was big and portly, wore a ridiculous red hat and a red coat with white linings.

"I thought I might find you hear." said the man, "I doubt you've heard of me. The name's Nick. How do?"

"Wha..What have you done to them?"

"Nothing. I've just left them what they have earned."

"Earned?"

"It's a tradition, Judas. Everyone is either good or evil, and once a year, on this night, I give everyone their just reward. Including you, your brother and your father."

"Rewards? What is it?"

"Here. It is what you deserve."

Nick tossed something at Judas's feet. The child vampire leaned down to pick it up and looked at it. Not believing what it was, he bit into it to make sure.

"It's a lump of coal."

"Yes, quite so."

"What can I do with a lump of coal?"

"That's the idea; you can't do much with it. Thus is the nature of evil deeds, they lead to nothing of worth."

"What does everyone else get?"

"Depends on how good they are; some get a stick of candy, some get a bar of gold and so on."

"Why can't I get any of that?"

"Because you have been deemed **naughty**, and quite magnificently so, might I add. You're not at the bottom of the list, but you're mind-bogglingly close."

"No!" cried Judas as he crushed the lump of coal and tossed it aside, "I want a real reward!"

"That's unfortunate, because I have nothing for you." said Nick.

"Yes you do." said Judas, baring his fangs.

"Wh... What exactly are you planning to do, little man?"

"NRAAAGHHHHH!"

Judas leapt at Nick, grabbing hold of his beard and climbing to wrap his hands around his neck before sinking his fangs into the old man's neck.

"AAAAAA!"

Filled with panic, Nick tore the young child away from his neck and hurled him away. Judas slammed into a boulder fifty feet away, he got up and watched as Nick staggered back towards his sled, looking at him with wide eyed disbelief.

"You...you bit me!" said Nick with a stammer, "I'm a saint! You little shit, what's wrong with you?! A lump of coal is too much for you! I'll go to hell before you get anything from me ever again!"

Nick got into the sled and grabbed hold of the leather, snapping it and prodding the beasts to move.

"I'll tell the world about you, you tiny blood-sucking bastard!" said Nick as his sled rose and started flying away, "Every child in the world, vampire or human alike, I will tell about Judas Priest!"

* * *

I have three inches of stitches in the bottom of my foot, the pain is killing me, I'm out of drugs and it's really cold. This goes out to everyone not having a merry couple of days. 

Hope you enjoyed it. I'll see you in Febuary.

PS. Tune in on New Year's eve for a little something.


	64. A taste of things to come

(A circular room, at the center of which is a round table. The table's surface is black and smooth, there are eight seats around it and in front of each there is a small computer screen built into the table. The whole place look's very high-tech. In a special position at the table marked by a silver arc near the edge sits James Bond. The other attendees are the heads of the seven branches of the League, Mina is there, and so are Felix Leiter and five others)

**Josephine/Mina:** My fellow extraordinary gentlemen and gentlewomen, our worst fear has be realized; the opposition has MacGuffin. They likely have a good idea of what Phoenix is and you can trust me as I say that they will spare neither coin nor blood in stopping it... None of that would have happened if we had given priority to shutting them down years ago like I had said we should, time and time again.

(Bond doesn't seem to like what Mina is saying. The two exchange an icy stare)

(Cut to later, Mina and Bond are standing alone)

**Bond:** I know you've been eyeing my position for years, but you're never going to get it... The League will never allow a vampire bitch to run it. Never insult me again, or you can start looking for another job.

(A quick shot of Mina in her office looking at grainy video footage of Bond and Harmony)

(Cut to Mina as she flies as a swarm of bats over Gotham City)

**Mina(**VO) :I'm done being used. I've bled and served this organization since the very beginning. It's high time I took what's due. The opposition, the League, neither will know what hit them.

(Fade to Black. Fade into an aerial view of a volcanic island)

(Cut to a darkened room where a middle-eastern man with olive skin and a dark goatee stands addressing a group of people each sitting on a folding metal chair)

**Naif:** Black Ops is the Devil's work.

(For the duration of Naif's speech we will see brief scenes of opposition members in action, though we can hear only Naif. First is a group of people around six around a table in what looks like a hotel room. A shot of Mona as she stands atop a building looking through the crosshairs of her sniper rifle.)

**Naif(**VO) : As a unit, you will receive your main orders from me.

(A shot of Sayid punching a massive man dressed in SWAT gear and tied to a chair. A shot of Priest as he leaps out of the shadows to grab a man in a suit before disappearing into the shadows once more)

**Naif(**VO) : Unlike the opposition's cells around the world, you will not simply observe, record and report. You will be almost constantly be getting your hands dirty.

(A shot of Shaun as clobbers a wounded commando with a crowbar. A shot of Kroenen summer-salting into a crowd and hacking away)

**Naif(**VO) :I won't bullshit you, the League are the most pragmatic, single minded people in the world, to triumph we have to match their ruthlessness.

(A shot of Lucy standing alone and shedding a tear. Return to the dark room and Naif)

**Naif:** I hope you won't have a problem with that. If else, we will understand if you quit right now

(Cut to Naif and Nemo drinking tea inside the Yellow Submarine)

**Nemo:** Are you sure this will work?

**Naif:** It will, for a time. But... failure is inevitable, somewhere along the line something bad will happen.

(A series of brief shots follows. A shot of Priest on a hospital bed, looking glum. Mona shooting somebody in the back on the head with a silenced gun. Shaun with a beard standing over Liz's grave. Lucy and Mona sitting together.)

**Lucy:** I think we're in for a bad year or two... We can expect everything to get worse before we can hope to make it better

(A shot of various members of the opposition standing in a circle, their heads bowed in grief)

**Lucy:** I think some of us... many of us will die.

(A shot of Mina and Senator McNeil. The US President as he is about to make a speech. Shaun looking through binoculars. Nemo and Father Dorian facing each other for the first time apparently)

**Lucy:** The road to what lay beyond Phoenix is rife with death, loss, grief and betrayal.

(A series of quick shots. Priest in bed with a blond woman. Dorian kneeling at the alter of a church. Kroenen falling into a river. A torpedo racing through the waters toward a submarine. A distinguished looking gentleman stepping out of limousine in front of a hotel in Las Vegas. A bald headed man with a barcode tattoo on the back of his neck. Mona passionately kissing Max Payne as both lay on a wooden floor. Superman hanging his head as Felix Leiter speaks to him. Mashu raising a Katanna as he sneaks up on a group of League Agents. St. Jimmy standing in the audience in a Ziggy Stardust concert. Batman punching Superman to the ground. Cate Archer stepping out of the darkness. Jenny and Barbossa locked in an embrace. Costas aiming a shotgun at Mona. Priest sinking his fangs into a woman's neck.)

(Fade to Black)

**Someone(**VO In many ways I have been gone from the world... Forced to don the skin of a sheep... But I'm back now. I have plenty of catching up to do, and then... We'll bring this world to its knees.

* * *

**Project Phoenix: Season 2**

**Febuary.2008**

The Invisible War Begins


End file.
